The final week of the year sees a return to the ambience I have enjoyed over the last couple of months with the ever popular Tangerine Dream, possibly Brian Eno's greatest work, and a new album from William Basinski. I'm also giving the very lengthy Tired Sounds another spin and dipping into Low's current acclaimed album
Double Negative.
Wyclef Jean - The Ecleftic 2 Sides II A Book
Low - Double Negative
Brian Eno - Ambient 1 (Music For Airports)
William Basinski - A Shadow In Time
Tangerine Dream - Zeit (bonus disc)
Stars Of The Lid - The Tired Sounds Of
William Basinski's
A Shadow In Time (also our beautiful cover album) consists of two side long tracks. The first part
For David Robert Jones is a tribute to David Bowie who died shortly before the release. It's characterised by pleasant loops marked by some odd discordant saxophone which comes in half way through and appears to be in an entirely different key to the main background sounds, perhaps recalling Bowie's jazz inflected
Black Star swansong [
actually the reference is to his Low album. Ed].
This track with its rounds of short distorted loops is closest to the sounds heard on
Disintegration Loops. You wouldn't think it likely, but I found myself humming along to the repetitive melodies. It's quite an addictive and hypnotic experience.
The second side is more easy listening with a more conventional piece of layered ambience that builds gradually before a beautiful coda - certainly the most accessible piece of Basinski I've heard thus far. Beginners start here.
The beautiful cover photo is of a Chinese dancer and the whole package comes in classy cardboard foldout digi-sleeve (like a miniature old gatefold LP sleeve). This whole genre of music pays particular attention to the presentation of the music which is fitting with the description many of these musicians enjoy as "sound artists".
One downside is the relatively high cost of many of these modern ambient CDs (or vinyls) generally. It's hard to find any under £10 but search long enough on ebay or at
Resident and you should have success if you aren't too choosy where you start.
I'm starting to dive deeper into the wondrous
Ambient 4 record by Brian Eno. A guest reviewer picked this album as
the only one he'd need on a desert island and I am beginning to understand why. Read his review
here>>.
The Low album (strange how coincidental links occur so often in this blog) is going to be interesting. I say
going to be, as I haven't had time to fully absorb it as yet. It has been critically acclaimed and comes top in
Resident's 2018 review:
Don’t adjust your speakers, check your cables or blow the dust from your needle. Low fully intend to be buried below the thunderous hiss, crackle and distortion, slowly fighting their way out of the storm. The band are here to question everything we know about them.
On initial listens I like the unusual production with odd sounds - a wealth of echoes, glitches, scratches, hums and samples, not unlike some of the modern electronica I've discovered recently particularly in the form of
Caribou and
Jan Jelinek. However, whereas those discoveries were instrumental Low are a rock band with singing and I haven't altogether come to terms with how the vocals fit with the music, especially the
ethereal lady singing.
Actually the closest parallel is obviously post
OK Computer Radiohead who are another band for whom the singing is problematic with me. Apparently
Double Negative is quite different to previous Low albums so the music-map may be distorted but here it is:
I'm astonished there is no Radiohead here in the stead of Americana artists like Bonnie Prince Billy, Willard Grant Conspiracy and Lambchop. I do get Sigur Ros, Mogwai, and My Bloody Valentine though.
There you go, that's it for this year, save for a forthcoming annual review. I hope you have enjoyed the blog and, like me, have discovered some new music worth investigating.
Wishing all my readers a happy and abundant 2019.
Best regards
Eddy
