Dedicate Function - Martin Eden (FALL ALBUMS 2012)

Dedicate Function

Martin Eden

Lefse Records.

SCQ Rating: 77%

Martin Eden is almost certainly someone’s birth name, but not the artist responsible for Dedicate Function. As an alias for Matthew Cooper, the ambient-romancing brain behind Eluvium, Martin Eden allows what any good disguise should afford: freedom to indulge in things typically suppressed. In Cooper’s – I’m sorry, Eden’s – case, these indulgences include pummeled beats that loop around introspective but tuneful vapours.

Its percussive momentum sprints a few miles clear of any tempo one might discern from Cooper’s past catalog but Martin Eden’s handiwork doesn’t completely abandon Eluvium territory. Let’s not forget that Cooper already branched away from traditional ambient music with 2010’s Similes, which incorporated his vocals and lyrics, and what bridged that gap – his attention to texture – works wonders again on Dedicate Function. “Verions”, with its tenderly warped synth and an overlapping swarm of horns at its centre, perfectly demonstrates how Cooper can render samples and instruments somehow lived-in. The pulse in “Etc Etc”, for example, creates rhythm out of a complex echo process that resembles the sound of fireworks ricocheting off of city buildings, whereas “Return Life” gathers its beat from some faint but gurgling found-sounds in (and likely from) nature.

An experimental reprieve from Eluvium’s somber musings, Dedicate Function could’ve easily assumed the expectations of a middle-of-the-road techno record. The melodies and rhythms aren’t especially unique, nor do they try to propel their compositions down surprising paths. But not unlike Aphex Twin, Martin Eden’s ambition lies in the microscopic, and his wealth of textural know-how deepens the hypnotic ambience behind these armchair-techno tunes to the point where the whole project’s swallowed whole. It's an engaging descent.

#12 Album Of 2010: Similes - Eluvium

Similes

Eluvium
Temporary Residence

Original SCQ Review

I’ve no emo back-story or real-life anecdote to disclose: Similes is inherently difficult to talk about. What’s so intangible to its eight pieces, their murky disposition through which Matthew Cooper radiates his crystalline piano compositions, and how do they further Eluvium’s ethereal qualities when many of them take enlist vocals and verse/chorus arrangements? True beauty cannot be entirely familiar and that’s what renders Similes so devastating; even the most ear-pleasing progressions of ‘The Motion Makes Me Last’ or ‘Making Up Minds’ tightrope over a chasm of soft electronics falling by the wayside. The blur of their slow decline creates Similes' ambience, so earthy and contemplative, making each listen an introspective score for naval-gazing.

No, Similes hardly requires any emotional backdrop to resonate. Its setting, buried deep in Cooper’s thick production and vocal layers, speaks for itself but broadly welcomes us to personify it as our own. When Cooper sings “I’m a vessel between two places I’ve never been,” he’s at once pinpointing Similes limbo and luring us along with him. For forty-two minutes, Eluvium provides an alternative level of existence.

Eluvium (SCQ's Year-End Questionnaire Part I)

For months I’ve tried in vain to decode Similes’ immersive qualities, what makes it so peacefully conflicted. And although the obvious answer waving to catch my attention - that the record’s emotional tide exists because of Matthew Cooper’s tireless songwriting efforts – is likely true, I preferred to believe that Eluvium’s latest was endowed with a particular set of circumstances (in the listener as much as in the songwriter) that helped it resonate so. After reading Cooper’s back-story for the Similes track ‘Weird Creatures’, however, I can’t kid myself any longer. Matthew Cooper's genius lies in his awareness of every small, earthly significance; realities that are far greater than our daily concerns. (Photo by Munaf Rayani)

SCQ: Every list-lover's favourite question: what are your top albums of 2010? Feel free to include any older yet worthy records you discovered this year.

MC: - i haven't really had much time to listen to new music this year
and it's getting a little overwhelming
but 3 releases have stood out to me thus far
Owen Pallett's "Heartland"
Arp's "The Soft Wave"
and Wild Nothing's "Gemini"
i wouldn't have expected to like something like the Wild Nothing record - but alas - it was in my car stereo for months.

SCQ: What were you listening to a lot of while recording the excellent Similes?

MC: -- i was pretty much exclusively listening to Similes - when i work on something i generally immerse myself in it.

SCQ: Be cocky for once in your life: what was the finest thing you did all year? That moment where you actually thought "shit, I nailed that..."?

MC: i'm not really a big "shit, i nailed that" kind of guy - some chickadees moved into a birdhouse i put up this past spring - i guess i was pretty pleased with myself about that - not sure why, since the birds did most of the work - - i also beat my wife at ping-pong several times over the summer... that was fun - - "finest" thing really translates to a collective of "finer" things for me - which would include reading on the back porch, riding my bike around town, and just generally soaking in the day.

SCQ: Effect and Cause: Over Easter's long-weekend, some friends and I met up in Montreal and I brought Similes, knowing that it would act as an ideal comedown record when we'd need it. Little did I know that we'd end up playing it front-to-back during the most chaotic hour of our weekend, listening carefully as each note unfurled from the speakers. Your record struck a powerful chord in each of us that night. Okay, your turn: confess a true tale that inspired one of the songs on Similes.

MC: -- there is a large tree that towers over everything across the street from my house - while writing Similes - i spent a lot of time sitting on my front porch looking at it. watching it's leaves flutter in the breeze, i would contemplate much so, eventually losing focus of everything -- usually when this happens to humans, depending on the lighting, these things called "floaters" appear in your vision, or rather, we take notice of them - my father is a neuroscientist, his focus on the eye - and i asked him what they were called - when i learned they were just simply called floaters - i was a little disappointed - i think i was perhaps hoping for something more unique and scientific sounding- i then learned that they aren't actually on the eyes but behind them - for some reason i had always assumed that they were little amoeba living on the vitreous humor or something of that sort - at any rate - this is where the song Weird Creatures was born - the moment of contemplation where you go deep, leave everything behind, and these weird creatures appear before you.

SCQ: If all the reasonable and implausible ideas in your head came to fruition in 2011, what would they be?

MC: --maybe humans would become pure energy, but still retain the ability to consider and recognize it
or otherwise - if that doesn't work out
i would release a few eluvium related albums - start a few other projects outside of eluvium,
and travel the world with my wife (while getting to stay in each place for more than a day)
scoring another full length film would be enjoyable also.

Similes - Eluvium (Spring Records 2010)

Similes

Eluvium
Temporary Residence.

SCQ Rating: 81%

“I’m a vessel between two places I’ve never been,” intones Matthew Cooper over the petal-soft piano of ‘The Motion Makes Me Last’, and it’s certainly a moment to savour. Like how a freeze-frame of reality can concrete to one’s memory, this lyric alone sums up the quiet hesitation of choosing one path over another and living with the consequences. Such are the boundaries of Similes’ mentality, a record dedicated to Cooper’s personal deliberations as much as it is cratered by an obvious sonic progression. Gone are Copia’s post-classical meanderings that often sounded as ambient as a junior-high piano recital and lost are the gauzy epics that bogged down Cooper’s focus; what is Similes if not the clairvoyant, unhurried jewel beneath that former record’s rocky terrain, a mystic knowledge acquired through those growing pains? The assuredness muscled at the roots of these eight songs are both reflective and seemingly enthralled by their very existence… so when Cooper sings about being a vessel between two unknown ends, it’s completely viable that one end is personal, the other professional.

A less subtle acknowledgement to that lyric is that, um, there are lyrics on an Eluvium record! Beyond his recent welcoming of verse-and-chorus structures, Cooper’s inconspicuous vocals warrant recognition as the biggest risk of his seven-year career. Whether treading low and cautiously over ‘Leaves Eclipse The Night’’s humid rustling or leading the finale ‘Cease To Know’, these vocal outings consistently hint at an emotional punch not worth engaging in forthright. Similes is more effective shadowboxing anyway, creating highlights out of missed climaxes and reveries out of sidewalk-wandered self-analysis. To call this album introverted doesn’t even do it justice; to recognize that every song with lyrics is centered around the word “mind” is getting warmer. As gently cohesive as Similes feels, it remains a brazen progression that will cause some Eluvium fans to turn up their noses. Let them. After the gluttonous Life Through Bombardment - a box-set of every Eluvium LP ever released – made a lengthy case for how predictable Cooper’s brand of ambience can become when split into sonic shades, Similes is a well-timed second coming that spotlights his craft in an exciting new direction. A brilliant document from an artist who lives between ambiguity and transparency, Similes brings out the best of both realms.