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

MOUNTAIN
Air Museum
THRILL274
Thrill Jockey 2011
07 Tracks. 43mins24secs

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

If Mountains, the duo formed of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, have constantly treaded the line between acoustic and electronic, they do so even more with their latest album, their second for Thrill Jockey. On the surface, Air Museum, actually sounds like a series of experiments with modular synthethis, and in a way, it is, but behind the stark electronic sounds and textures lie an array of acoustic and electric instrumentation, from guitars and bass to cello, piano, accordion and more. It is the very essence of the record which is changed. While the pair processed acoustic sounds through a computer in the past, they here use modular synths, pedals and analog tools to render their sound sources, and, instead of working from live improvisations, they recorded in a studio, allowing them to explore new ways of working. These processed were devised following the band’s last tour, when they decided to move away from computer reliance. They spent the next few months assembling new tools and working out ideas on how to apply this set up. The resulting compositions confound expectations of what a Mountains album sounds like, and blurs the boundaries between acoustic and electronic like never before.

Air Museum opens with the drone structure of January 17. Initially fairly minimal, it rapidly grows into a much denser formation as sounds sprout out and bubble up to the surface. Thousand Square, which follows, shows a shift in focus towards a rhythmic pattern around which circle all sorts of other micro-structures, like miniature satelites, some based around loops, others around much looser sequences. It is pretty much between these two poles that Anderegg and Holtkamp experiment for the rest of the record, often bringing the two together and arranging them into hypnotic dreamy sonic vignettes.

What characterized Mountains’ previous records was the pair’s incredible attention to details and the superb refinement of their soundscapes. While Air Museum doesn’t reveal its acoustic components easily, the same consideration is applied, to very similar effect. The aspect of the music may be different, but Anderegg and Holtkamp have lost nothing of their expert craftsmanship. This is obvious throughout, from the way they develop their pieces, slowly building up layers of abrasion and interferences on Newsprint, creating shimmering textures reminiscent of mid-seventies Tangerine Dream on Sequel or arranging the various segments of Backwards Crossover into a perfectly coherent whole, while the epic album closer Live At The Triple Door, edited from a live performance recorded in Seattle two years ago, is an extremely intricate piece which continuously grows over almost its entire course, until it comes to a close with just an acoustic guitar.

That Air Museum sounds much more purely electronic than any of the band’s previous outputs doesn’t account for the acoustic sound sources that form its basis, but this is the interesting thing about it. While they process them with analogue appliances, Mountains actually manage to make real instruments sound, and feel, totally artificial, and, pushing the contradiction even further, they in turn make these seemingly electronic soundscapes sound extremely organic and real.

4.6/5

Mountains (MySpace) | Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

OVAL
O
THRILL244
Thrill Jockey 2010
70 Tracks. 112mins37secs

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

It has been ten years since Markus Popp was heard of last. Once a purveyor of fine complex electronic music, it appeared that the project, which he founded with Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzger in Darmstadt, Germany in the early nineties and had been solely leading since 1996, had dried up. Virtually nothing had been heard from the man since his 2001 album Ovalcommers. Furthermore, his other projects, Microstoria, a collaboration with Mouse On Mars’s Jan St. Werner, and So, the duo he formed with Japanese vocalist Eriko Toyoda, also remained inactive during that period.

Originally, Oval was overtly electronic and experimental, a terrain upon which raw abstract formations flourished. In their first few years, Popp, Oschatz and Metzger redefined what electronic music was about through a series of groundbreaking albums. Once sole on board, Popp continued his exploratory work, documented on a series of releases of which Ovalprocess (2000) and Ovalcommers (2001), both published on Thrill Jockey, are outstanding examples.

In 2010, Oval is a very different affair. Gone are the abrasive textures, overlapping soundscapes and distorted beats. The music is still extremely fragmented, but here, Popp uses acoustic sounds as main components, collating them into particularly short and dense vignettes. The recent Oh EP, which collected fifteen tracks spread over twenty five minutes, served to introduce this much more delicate and fragile sound. The mammoth enterprise that is O is a much more challenging project altogether. With seventy track spread over two discs and nearly two hours, there is plenty to appease even the biggest appetite. The tracks featured on the first disc, twenty of them, are by far the most accomplished. While some tracks barely go over the minute mark, others are developed much more comprehensively, at times around a core set of sounds placed as to evoke some odd band formation, at others focussing on miniature melodic themes served by intricate orchestrations and processing. The widespread use of acoustic sound source, ranging from various plucked string instruments to live drums and organ, give some of these compositions a great sense of space, while hinting at much more intimate settings on others.

The second disc collects much more volatile and ephemeral pieces. Sounding like fragments of compositions, sonic scraps assembled with no particular plan or order, these often develop over just a few seconds before fading away without trace, replaced by similar formations again and again. It is not clear whether these were conceived as simple sonic interludes, as fragments of more established compositions, or as entirely random elements, destined to be shuffled through haphazardly, and they can very much be appreciated equally whatever the intention.

The problem with this album, especially its second half, is its overall uniformity. With very little to differentiate one track from another, they end up merging into one another, blurring any edge or reference point in the record, diluting them more and more as the album progresses. One rapidly loses any bearing here, and while this may well be part of the plan, this album eventually feels quite overwhelming and doesn’t entirely work. Despite this and the radically different angle characterizing this record, it is clear that Popp has lost none of his incredible dexterity with sounds and ambiences, and his visionary approach remain as sharp as ever.

3.2/5

Oval (MySpace) | Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP iTunes: DLD

FENNESZ DANIELL BUCK
Knoxville
THRILL246
Thrill Jockey 2010
04 Tracks. 31mins07secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP Norman Records: CD | LP

Improvisation is an art form which Christian Fennesz, David Daniell and Tony Buck have made theirs in their respective field. Recorded live at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee at the beginning of last year, this album documents the trio’s first ever performance as an ensemble. Having never performed before was never going to be an issue for these three veterans of live improvisation. On one side is Australian drummer and percussionist extraordinaire Tony Buck, best known as one third of The Necks, with whom he has been performing and recording for twenty years. On the other are Atlanta-born David Daniell, who, beside his solo work, has collaborated with an impressive number of musicians over the years, from Thurston Moore and Douglas McCombs to Greg Davis or Sylvain Chauveau, and Austrian experimental guitarist and laptop artist Christian Fennesz, whose list of collaborators is equally as impressive, including people as diverse as Jim O’Rourke, Peter Rehberg, David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto or, recently, Sylvain Chauveau and Steven Hess.

Knoxville barely makes it to the half hour mark, but the trio pack in an incredible lot during that time as the set, split into four tracks of roughly the same length, continuously shifts between quiet sequences, where Buck’s extremely detailed and textural use of a rich and varied percussive palette often fills the sonic space, and much denser moments as the guitars, both processed and raw, become more prominent. The album opens with extremely faint brushes of metallic friction and shimmering touches of cymbals, from which progressively emerge gentle guitar forms, which eventually become more incisive and distorted. Cutting through layers of distortions and feedback, Buck responds by intensifying his cymbal work and adding rumbles of bass drums and toms, before the piece settles again and turns into Heat From Light. Treated guitars, electronics and drums are caught in a much tighter power struggle from the start here, but, far from working against each other, the trio build up the intensity of their sound as a whole and seriously increase the level of electricity running through it, until all three retreat as one and move on.

Of the four sections of the set, Antonia is by far the most atmospheric and, at times incredibly ethereal. Building on a backdrop of distortions, Fennesz layers some wonderfully airy guitar textures, at times reminiscent of Robin Guthrie or Kevin Shields, over which Daniell carves a series of delicate motifs which add to the somewhat pastoral moment, but these soon become entangled with the processed distortions scattered all over Diamond Mind, and struggle to regain a dominant position. Meanwhile, Buck once again brightens the mood by deploying an array of metallic percussions and bells, adding fine kickdrum and tom work as the intensity rises again, until the piece reaches its chaotic paroxysm when all three musicians combine their energy to give this set a last deafening blow.

While it is impossible to capture the obvious tension and energy in its entirety, Knoxville still manages to document the incredible synergy between all three musicians involved and the superb level of mutual understanding of each other’s natural space. Despite its brief format, this album is particularly dense and exciting, and can only leave the listener want for more.

4.8/5

Fennesz | David Daniell | Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | LP Norman Records: CD | LP

OVAL
Oh
THRILL1244
Thrill Jockey 2010
15 Tracks. 25mins03secs
Format: 12”

Amazon UK: 12″ US: 12″ Boomkat: 12″

It has been ten years since Markus Popp propped up as Oval, a project with which he had been fiercely busy since the early nineties, releasing six albums and countless EPs. The project was started in 1991 in Darmstadt, Germany by Popp, Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzger. Five years later, Popp found himself sole in charge following the departure of both Oschatz and Metzger, and continued to experiment with glitches and clicks until his last release to date, in 2001.

Fast-forward to 2010, and Oval is back with a new EP, prelude to a full length double album due out later on this summer. Comprising no less than fifteen tracks, covering a mere twenty-five minutes, Oh represents quite a departure from the granular electronica that has been at the core of the Oval sound since the early days. Instead, he embarks here on a very different journey and relies on surprisingly acoustic sounds, mostly guitars and drums, with virtually no glitches in sight. This is the result of a complete change of working processes. Popp has, for this record, ditched custom-designed software and patches and armed himself with a handful of widely available off-the-shelves programs instead. There is also here a stronger focus on clear melodic structures, although these are often kept to fragments, the tracks rarely reaching over a couple of minutes. It is as if Popp was collecting random ideas, but instead of developing them into full tracks, he purposely kept them in draft state. This is reinforced by the apparent small pool of sounds used. Processed guitars are the main components of these fifteen tracks, with drums also playing quite an important role on the first four, occasionally brining to mind the psychedelic tones of Fourtet, especially on Hmmm and on the title track.

Later on, Popp crafts much more minimal pieces, which often shimmer with minute sonic particles, giving them a slightly unpolished feel. While this doesn’t quite define the whole record, it represents a major slant in the approach here. Tracks such as Kastell, Featurette, Kasko or Homesick appear to be more elaborate than they actually are, as sounds are ever so slightly distorted, enough to give them a processed aspect and alter the perception of the listener, but not enough to render them totally unidentifiable. As the second side progressively draws to a close, the mood changes once again to become more introspective. This is reflected in a more straightforward approach to sound sources, which lose their fragmented aspect to appear more natural, especially on Locria and Nonfiction.

With this EP, Markus Popp unveils a totally new direction, away from the heavy digital processing of earlier records. The music here appears much more pastoral and elegant, and, instead of focussing solely on sound, caters for delicate melodies, albeit often in truncated form. All this is, however, still unmistakably Oval, and this EP, released at only a thousand copies, paves the way for a long-awaited new album which is likely to expand greatly on the work presented here.

4.2/5

Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: 12″ US: 12″ Boomkat: 12″

CHICAGO UNDERGROUND DUO
Boca Negra
THRILL228
Thrill Jockey 2010
10 Tracks. 55mins45secs

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

Started over twelve years ago by cornet player Rob Mazurek and drummer and percussionist Chad Taylor, Chicago Underground has over the years existed as a duo, trio, quartet and ‘orchestra’ (quintet), with members including Jeff Parker (guitars), of Tortoise/Isotop 217 fame, Noel Kupersmith (drums) and Sara P. Smith (trombone). The common thread between these various franchises is a particular blend of avant-garde jazz infused with electronic treatments, awkward time signatures, and sonic experimentations which all feed into both composed and improvised work. The collective have released over ten albums, comprising five albums for Mazurek and Taylor, in their Duo incarnation, alone.

Breaking with the collective’s tradition of working in Chicago, Boca Negra was recorded in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Mazurek now resides, and expands greatly on the pair’s previous work, particularly on the use of electronics. While Mazurek’s sole focus is on cornet, Taylor is found playing drums, vibraphone, mbira, an African thumb piano, and is also responsible for electronics and programming. All through Boca Negra, the pair alternate between particularly charged performances (Green Ants, Broken Shadows, Confliction, Spy On The Floor), resolutely more delicate and atmospheric pieces (Quantum Eye, Hermeto, Laughing With The Sun, Vergence) and minimalist experimentations (Left Hand Of Darkness, Roots And Shooting Stars). This constant shift creates an interesting circular current through the record, bringing elements back into focus at various stages, often placed in totally different contexts.

On its energetic side, Boca Negra is particularly uncompromising. Album opener Green Ants is submitted to a barrage of drums over which skips a playful Mazurek, at times totally detached from Taylor’s ever changing patterns, at others entering into a refined dialogue with them. Later on, the bar is move upward drastically with Broken Shadow, a particularly deconstructed revision of an Ornette Coleman piece, on which a multi-tasking Taylor boasts of playing the drums and vibraphone at the same time, as unnatural as it may seem. This is by far the most intense and fragmented moment of the record, one that requires repeat listening to get a comprehensive grip on the whole piece. In comparison, Confliction and Spy On The Floor appear much more tamed and concentrated, but this is in now way to their detriment.

Placed in between these, as to provide moment of respite, pieces such as Quantum Eye or Hermeto allow for subtlety and elegance, the former a particularly strip down composition which rises from the sombre rumbles to reveal a poetic combination between cornet and mbira, while the latter channels elements of ambient into scintillating little melodies. Elsewhere, the pair opt for more challenging moments, distorting sounds to the point of rendering their respective instruments almost unrecognisable on Laughing With The Sun and Roots And Shooting Stars.

At the forefront of contemporary experimental jazz, Chicago Underground Duo have created with Boca Negra a particularly compelling record, fuelled by constantly changing reference points and influx of energy. Not an easy record by any means, it requires patience and determination to unleash its hidden layers, but this is, ultimately, an infinitely rewarding process.

4.7/5

Chicago Underground Duo (MySpace) | Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: CD | LP US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP iTunes: DLD

ROBERT A. A. LOWE & ROSE LAZAR
Eclipses
THRILL234
Thrill Jockey 2010
08 Tracks. 36mins41secs

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

A former bassist with experimental outfit 90 Day Men, Robert A. A. Lowe turned his attention to his solo project, Lichens in 2004 and consequently released two albums on Kranky. In 2008, Lowe teamed up with Chicago-based graphic artist Rose Lazar for Gyromancy, a limited edition book, collecting the art of both Lowe and Lazar, and CD of Lowe’s music. The pair reconvene on Eclipses, a limited LP which once again comprises their collective graphic work and Lowe’s music.

Created as a support for the visuals, the music has very little to do with the treated folk and vocal experiments which define Lowe’s work as Lichens. Instead of acoustic guitars, he adopts here a resolutely electronic approach. Recorded entirely at home using old analogue synthesizers, Eclipses is firmly rooted in early Kosmische, its particularly stripped down tracks based on just a handful of recurring sounds and loops. The melodies are equally sparse, to the point of almost non-existence on Crayon Gym, with virtually no structure to hold them firmly together. There are heavy hints of early Kraftwerk or Cluster scattered all the way through, but even these could appear extremely elaborate in comparison with Lowe’s bare instrumentations. The only way for his to expand the scope of the music is to use repetition and delays to gain some element of depth. This is perfectly illustrated on Suno Vidis, on which a synth line is repeated almost instantly, slightly offset, in the background, until it appears almost independent, or on Tajdaj Ondoj. Later, on Ŭyndham-a Horloĝo, Lowe applies a much stronger cast of effects and finds himself stepping into early Tangerine Dream territory for a moment, but this is only a temporary foray onto richer grounds, as Turing Punkto and Tapiŝoj Lasis La Lumon En, which conclude, promptly return to much more exposed forms.

There is something naïve about the music on Eclipses, which perfectly echoes the child-like nature of the accompanying art, Giving this album a warmth which is not quite conveyed through the instruments and sounds used. While his source material is in essence rather cold and inert, the way Lowe uses it gives it all a much more human and emotional slant.

4.2/5

The Great Lakes (Rose Lazar) | Thrill Jockey
Amazon US: LP | DLD Boomkat: LP iTunes: DLD

MOUNTAINS
Etching
THRILL226
Thrill Jockey 2009
01 Tracks. 38mins14secs

Amazon UK: LP Amazon US: LP Boomkat: LP

The project of New York-based Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, Mountains have, in the four years since they first appeared, gained much critical acclaim for their impressionist sound formations. While their first two albums were published on their own imprint, Apestaartje, their third opus proper, Choral, materialised on Chicago’s Thrill Jockey. In early 2009, Mountains recorded a long improvisation in Anderegg’s studio, in live condition. The resulting piece, Etching, was then sold, as a CDR, during the tour coinciding with the release of Choral. This recording aiming to document the band in a similar setting to that of the tour, is now made available once again through Thrill Jockey as a very limited LP-only release.

Originally consisting of just one long live improvised piece, which was split into two sequences for the vinyl version, Etching is typical of the work of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp. Built from a sound pool consisting of acoustic and electric guitars, and various other acoustic instruments and electronics, processed and treated live and assembled into an ever changing piece, Etching harks back to the band’s self-titled debut album, which consisted primarily of long compositions, often stretching well past the fifteen minute mark. Here though, the sonic progression is much more nuanced as the piece gently ebbs and flows over its all course, making the most of the time scale to emphasised the various tones and moods that are often found in their shorter tracks.

Etching opens with a gentle layering of acoustic guitars, which grows slowly as new elements are progressively swallowed to become intrinsic part of a rolling melodic formation. By the four minute mark, the nucleus of the piece has become totally smooth and uniform, allowing for shimmering electronics to ripple on its surface before settling into a second layer of sediment. From there on, this stratification process is repeated over and over until Etching reaches its first peak, ten minutes in, and is subjected to a meticulous erosion from there on as its first segment rapidly fades away. The piece quickly regains momentum though, and this time Anderegg and Holtkamp deploy an even richer set of sounds. Very much like on Choral, the original sources are pretty impossible to isolate or identify fully here, apart for the recurring textural guitar components which give Etching a superb outline, contributing to the ethereal character of the piece. Developed over just under forty minutes, its poetic meanders and evocative tones brought to life like never before, Etching is a composition without equal in Mountains’ work.

5/5

Thrill Jockey
Amazon UK: LP Amazon US: LP Boomkat: LP

LOKAI
Transition
THRILL219
Thrill Jockey 2009
09 Tracks. 37mins45secs

CD: Amazon UK | Amazon US LP: Amazon UK | Amazon US

Lokai materialised briefly in 2005, just long enough to record a collection of granular electro-acoustic pieces, 7 Million, released on Austrian imprint Mosz. Since, Vienna-based Florian Kmet and Stefan Németh have been busy with other projects, the latter having notably a solo album on Thrill Jockey last year, leaving Lokai dormant for all this time.

The pair reconvened last year, using Kmet’s old flat as rehearsal venue/recording studio, allowing them to take the necessary time to explore the wealth of acoustic instruments at their disposal and work ways to process them into fully-formed compositions. The result, collected in this somewhat short, yet rather exquisite second album, appears overall smoother and more delicate than the duo’s previous output, yet it retains the same granularity and subtle layering. Each track is composed of multitudes of sonic particles which continuously form, disperse and reform into various musical phrases, or progressively converge toward a central point.

Roads, which opens, starts with what sounds like an old ship cracking and breathing under a gentle breeze, but which, on closer listen, is likely to be sourced from the frame of an upright piano. Later on, a mechanical rhythm rises, leading a recurring little melody through the various noises. A similar electro-acoustic modular structure is developed on 4 A.M. and Glimmer, but these pieces are much more minimal, linear and introvert. On the latter, a plaintive accordion comes brushing against a restricted set of percussions first, then against a shimmering acoustic guitar. The piece comes to a complete standstill around the two and a half minute mark, but regains consistence for a further few seconds.

On Panarea and later Bruit, the pair start with somewhat rarefied components, a barely audible hiss on the former, percussion on the latter, but soon build up a much starker and dense sound formation. On Panarea, this process is slow and allows for ephemeral melodies to form, but on Bruit, a bleak wall of distortions advances fast and rapidly becomes overwhelming, but retreats almost as quickly once it reaches its peak. Elsewhere, Kmet and Németh focus for a short moment on a radically simple and stripped down moment on the exquisite and folky Volver, while closing piece Roads (Reprise) offers a smoother, almost melodic side to the pair’s electro-acoustic excursions.

With this second album, Lokai have vastly expanded the scope of their work, especially towards its more delicate side and given their music much more depth and detailing. Their pieces are often fragile and all too quickly gone, but this actually works in their favour and contributes to give the overall album a transient feel.

4/5

Lokai (MySpace) | Thrill Jockey
CD: Amazon UK | Amazon US LP: Amazon UK | Amazon US

MOUNTAINS
Choral
THRILL211
Thrill Jockey 2009
06 Tracks. 51mins08secs

Vast sonic plains and beautiful, rich textures have been the corner stones of New York’s Mountains ever since they released their self-titled debut album four years ago. In 2006, Sewn, their second offering, developed on its predecessor’s blueprint to give the more succinct compositions an accentuated relief  and a greater overall focus. Following a very limited vinyl-only release collecting live recordings and odds and sods last year, which is due to be re-released on CD later on in the year, the duo formed of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp have, with their third opus, taken their sound to yet another level.

While the pair’s first two records were published on their own Apestaartje imprint, Choral surfaces on Chicago-based Thrill Jockey. Recorded at home in New York, this album is the fruit of long sessions during which the pair would record multiple version of each track, adding little or no overdubs, and choosing the best versions for the record. The resulting six pieces are longer than most of the tracks found on Sewn, but the density and evocative power of the music remains totally untouched. Once again, the pair seem to expand on the already vast bank of instruments and sounds used on previous records, and weave them into ever tighter and denser sonic drapes which progressively build up from fragile forms into sweeping flows of majestic sounds. This is never truer than on the epic Melodica. From the multitude of bells and chimes scattered over the first few furlongs of its path rise wave after wave of long cinematic drones which grow into lush flourishes before exploding into myriads of scintillating debris.

Very much like Fennesz, what characterises the music of Mountains is its overall pastoral beauty and atmospheric density, even when at its most abrasive. On Add Infinity, which opens with a gentle melancholic acoustic guitar, underlined by a subtle brush of accordion, before a much more compact and grittier slab of white noise and saturation progressively swallows it all, all this happens totally effortlessly, and, quite impressively, without any fracture in the musicality of the track. In stark contrast, the title track, which opens the album, builds on the sound of an accordion, stretched and modelled into a monolithic linear backdrop against which deep bell-like bass pulses bounce at regular interval, while other sonics float and revolve in higher registers, but here again, the mood is strikingly peaceful and arcadian. The shorter Map Table beams through the elegant motifs drawn by an acoustic guitar and, towards the end, a piano. Equally, Sheet Two, which conclude, is a deceptively simple and concise piece where an electro-acoustic guitar resonates into wonderfully airy swathes evocative of Victorialand-era Cocteau Twins.

Once again, Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp do justice to the name they have chosen as a vehicle for their common work by creating vast and impressive soundscapes and giving them depth and relief. Feeding on a rich and varied pool of sounds, either collected or generated, Choral is a truly magnificent, deeply lyrical and accomplished record.

5/5

Thrill Jockey
Buy: CD | LP