JASON URICK
I Love You
THRILL292
Thrill Jockey 2012
05 Tracks. 37mins27secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP Boomkat: CD | LP iTunes: DLD

Portland-based Jason Urick first got noticed back in 2009 with his debut album, Husbands, a collection of spaced out drone-base compositions recorded over the course of a few years. This was followed a year later by an EP, Fussing & Fighting, on which he adopted a more rhythmic set up, based on hypnotic loops and pulses. Other outputs, mostly on cassette and 7” also materialised during that time on more artisanal imprints.

Whilst sonically closer to the latter, I Love You effectively bridges the gap between his two previous Thrill Jokey releases by bringing together the vast expanses of textural drone formations of Husbands and the much denser soundscapes he experimented with on Fussing & Fighting. The result is an incredibly cosmic ambient record, articulated around interconnecting loops and patterns, which appears to continuously expand over its course. It therefore is surprising that Urick manages to create such an impression within quite a restricted timeframe. The illusion is maintained by the use of relatively short sequences which are continuously looped as additional layers progressively come into focus.

Adding to the pool of electronic and processed sounds which form the bulk of Urick’s sonic palette are distorted vocal phrases, often sounding like miniature mechanical mantras, which Urick distills throughout, using them as key melodic components, especially on Don’t Digital, where a series of increasingly twisted themes appear to absorb each other over a lo-fi dub structure, or Ageless Ism, which sounds like a pop song thrown into a blender and viciously pulverised.

While The Crying Song also builds up around a heavily processed pattern which, although not as progressive as that of the two previous tracks, nevertheless showcases a certain natural rhythmic flow, I Love You and Syndromes which bookend this record are more static pieces, clearly hankered in the stark drone approach of Urick’s debut, but the former is constantly unsettled by deeply rooted pulses, while the latter denotes a more atmospheric setting which is not without recalling early seventies Tangerine Dream.

Jason Urick created a particularly expansive and vast sonic landscape with his debut, and he manages to push the boundaries even further here, but, like its predecessor, I Love You remains surprisingly concise. The result is however somewhat impressive and his dreamy soundscapes and patterns absorbing.

4.2/5

Jason Urick | Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP Boomkat: CD | LP iTunes: DLD