There is an underscored peace, like a wisp of scratchy fronds along side your ankles as if time-traveling through a foggy scape.
For Ralph Steinbruchel Narrow seems a conversation of the weary state of our times. An instant sense of melancholy at the outset fuels thin air with thick reverberation and observation. As the record continues he tweaks the range of minimal layers to reflect as light does on the surface of a somewhat rocky terrain filled with the staccato of filtered patchy light as if a cloud mass were directly moving overhead. Its sense of disquiet tugs at the pure ambient potential to great effect, queasy rather than easy listening. Still, there is an underscored peace, like a wisp of scratchy fronds along side your ankles as if time-traveling through a foggy scape. Quite heady, the static is sparse, the vibration, dense. Towards the final passages of Narrow there is a much more stylized concrète flow on this record, as if the edges are rotting away, perhaps akin to the layers of ice disappearing in the arctic? The path becomes thinner referencing the road ahead, an abyss. In the end there is a subliminal nod to the depth and steep grade of Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi. These variations hang in the balance while we watch and wait for the great unknown.
Narrow is out now on Room40.
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