Each of these five pieces shows a melodic drift, slow, hazy and shimmering in the background. It’s like an organ melody set against the blurry tones of whatever else is happening, which can’t be easily heard.
A purer ambient form
As a returning musician, David Newlyn has released three albums on this label. I also reviewed his music released by Ephre Imprint, Symbolic Interaction, and Boltfish Recordings, returning to Vital Weekly 557. His last album was short, and so is his new one, which has five pieces in 33 minutes. The new album returns to a purer ambient form, with the rhythms of before. The music leans heavily on the use of synthesizer sounds, which are rusty and broken, adding a delicate additional layer to the music. These could have been recorded on an unstable recorder, slightly altering the speed. He further expands upon that unstable character with faint clicks, a bit of vinyl crackle, and field recordings too obscure to recognize.
Each of these five pieces shows a melodic drift, slow, hazy and shimmering in the background. It’s like an organ melody set against the blurry tones of whatever else is happening, which can’t be easily heard. The first time I played this, the details escaped me, and I thought I was hearing nothing more or less than a most pleasant ambient album. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the wavering tones of rusty magnetic tape, including tape hiss and small sounds buried in the mix, which gave it a distinctly different feel. This was a great, if not very short, album.
Review by: Frans de Waard / Vital Weekly #1430. Reprinted with permission.
Encouraged To Lose is available on Sound In Silence. [Bandcamp]
