After spending half of June on the road, I've now survived July in suitcases and on loaned mattresses. The long goodbye from Ottawa has an end in sight but it's always just over the horizon. There have been a lot of "but"'s lately. Skeleton Crew Quarterly moves to its new headquarters today but won't have internet for another ten odd days. That's the most recent example.
Still, this lengthy transition of moving cities is coming to a close and I appreciate those of you who have been checking in on the homepage to see what's new. There will be loads of record reviews and emails to catch up on once this unstable summer has ironed out.
Although few names
feature as prominently in the realms of textured ambience and classical piano
as Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto, respectively, it would be
disingenuous to assert that the duo have gotten the proper mileage out of this collaboration.
It’s true that their shared work has sustained itself on engaging and
atmospheric compositions but Fennesz and Sakamoto have also preserved a
submissive approach that critics accuse of condoning the creation of “background
music”.
If the sum of these
composers’ parts has felt somehow less than their prolific individual halves,
Flumina will change no one’s opinion on first approach. These twenty-four
tracks, numbered instead of named and spread across two discs, would hang
together the same way had you shuffled them blindly and played it through. What
Flumina lacks in punch and precision, it makes up for with flow; taken in
handfuls or in the full two-hours’ worth, this body of work shapes itself into
an ocean of ambience – impossible to navigate and overpowering.
Describing
highlights in this case would be a waste for words; each track ruminates on a
strict palette of haunting ambient smears and piano that, whether meandering or
building, works effectively. Once it has been digested over the course of
countless listens, Flumina’s many tracks condense from a uniform and overlong
sleeper into something radiant and compositionally eclectic. For those who lack
the patience, however, this generous offering from Fennesz and Sakamoto should
only cement opinions – namely, that Flumina is nothing more than accumulating
mileage.
The hooks are
plentiful and breezy, culminating into the sort of album you enjoy hearing
blared from a summer cottage but not enough to ask who’s playing. The catchiest
track, single “Stairway”, doubles as their smartest too, with a faultless
guitar chug and palpable sense of yearning unheard amid Can-Con’s roster since
Matt Mays. Other highlights, like the synth-assisted rocker “Six Dead Tigers”
and majestic closer “Sweet Dee”, manage to flesh out new dimensions to Yukon
Blonde’s pop persona but they’re fleeting when so much of Tiger Talk seeks only
to please the masses. And while these ten tracks should succeed in that goal,
it’s a timid objective for a band that sounds capable of digging deeper.
Few catalogs in the
ambient genre prove as bizarre and beguiling as Kyle Bobby Dunn’s. Intensely
personal – enough so that Dunn’s name features into his album titles with the
same proclivity as Weezer dedicating records to Crayola colours – and
unerringly shapeless, it’s the traits that some might view as hindrances that
give Dunn’s post-classical soundscapes their memorable hue. It helps that he’s
also quite prolific. Since being introduced with A Young Person’s Guide To… in
the winter of 2010, shortly after I moved to snowy Ottawa, my iTunes has grown
to contain no less than five hours of subsequent Kyle Bobby Dunn material. And
that’s not even all of it.
Bring Me the Head of
Kyle Bobby Dunn finds the Brooklyn-based artist transitioning again, away from
last spring’s concise Ways Of Meaning LP and into the long-form, double-record
ambitions of yore. Which brings me to Dunn’s other noteworthy trademark – his
uniformity. With so many releases spawned from a minimalist’s palette, it’s a
testament to his blurred compositions that Bring Me the Head Of… maintains the
fresh feel of what is ultimately another tribute to solitude. With
instrumentation that sounds more comparable to streetlights at dusk, quiet
sidewalks and hazy memories than guitar, strings or other tools designed to
emanate sound, “The Hungover” and “La Chanson de Beurrage” lurch gracefully in
circles that usher an emotional resonance to surface. Other tracks make their
impact quicker: “An Evening With Dusty” presents a nostalgic drone-piece while
“Diamond Cove (And Its Children Were Watching)” cuts directly to the gooey
center of a climax without forsaking its atmosphere. Like all of Dunn’s
releases, however, the best tracks unveil themselves slowly over multiple
listens, and appeal on the grounds of personal sensitivities rather than any
tangible, melodic qualities. It’s why “Douglas Glen Theme” floors me and I
can’t properly explain why.
Over the past two
years, Kyle Bobby Dunn has indeed become one of my favourite ambient artists,
even when acknowledging that his releases don’t arouse a level of excitement
that befits the occasion. Listening intently to these transient drones doesn’t
have nearly the effect as trying to ignore them does, as if Dunn’s insisting
that we absorb these tonal landscapes into our personal lives with the same
casualness by which he seemingly accumulated them. As such, it’s impossible for
me to hear Bring Me the Head Of… without reflecting on my impending move from
Ottawa and all of the memories I can link to Dunn’s evocative output during my time here. Bearing
the same faultless uniformity as before, Bring Me the Head Of… defies any
ranking amidst Dunn’s discography. Instead, I can only promise that it’s as
potent, inspiring and cryptic as the others.
Naked women don’t
figure into electronic music that often. Moreover sex doesn’t sell in this
scene, probably because people willing to immerse themselves in a musical form
that largely dispels hooks, repetition and vocals likely aren’t the demographic
to objectify or be swayed by nude provocations. Not to say that Biodance’s
cover-art seeks to challenge or offend anyone; it certainly doesn’t bother me.
But it addresses a cornerstone of humanity – sexuality – that rarely gets a nod
in comparison to most electronic muses (namely – childhood nostalgia, natural
imagery and states of clairvoyance). Crisopa’s style fits far more comfortably
into these well-trodden themes than as the sort of slick club beats you’d spin
while envisioning naked women in your gin and tonic but like the cover-art,
these songs navigate unique headspace.
Without breaking
ground on any new territory, Crisopa has taken electronic music’s insular
nature to the dance-floor. The evidence is all over “Ruled By Strange New
Laws”, a familiar analog-fed drone-piece that rises into a frothy, dream-bound
club-banger. That template follows suit after the starry piano refrain of
“Gaviot”, the patient choral of “Es Todo Mental” and the latest house rhythms on
“Biodance With Me”, with each boiling over into a rich euphoria. These lush
beats aren’t intended to clash against whatever dubstep happens to be cresting
at the moment; Crisopa’s dance-floor remains a personal one – your apartment’s
kitchen with the lights out, your neighbourhood after dark, virtually anywhere
that feels intimate. Because despite Biodance’s modus operandi, which gives
Boards Of Canada’s mystic feel a linear push into the line-up outside the club,
Crisopa’s work demonstrates vivid sensuality in soft focus. Whether listening
to the BoC-indebted loneliness of “White Vacuum” or the seismic landscape of “Planets
With Lava Oceans”, Biodance deserves to be heard in the dark - before, during or
after you’ve been in proximity to someone you love. It’s that sort of listen; a
headphone record you dance alone to.
The sophomore
release by Montreal-based folksters Wind Up Radio Sessions displays an earnest
songwriting unit thriving off their own disciplines. Without once forsaking
their approach for anything resembling a radio bid, Bird Eyes makes an
intricate yarn of lilting melodies and warm undertones. It’s a compact approach
that deserves humble praise, for these are songs that take the edge off of
tough days – like lullabies for twenty-somethings.
Mid-tempo jams like
“Chesterfields” and the vaguely psychedelic “Legally Dead” air welcome bits of
distortion into an otherwise acoustic set, while “Backporch” defies expectations
with a lived-in synth cresting its chorus. These pockets of relaxed rock gel
well with quiet ruminations that carry just as much bite. A wire-tough guitar
line gives the reflective “Our Ways” some latent bluster whereas “Blades Of
Grass” relies on powerful lyrics and sparse acoustics to transcend. With no
less than three singers in rotation and enough smart studio nuances to flesh
out their quiet ideas, Wind Up Radio Sessions have a cultish likeability not
unlike The Shins; instead of forging new territory or making statements, they
remind us what’s delicate and powerful in the comforts of the traditional. An
understated but memorable folk-rock gem.
