It’s a soothing and sophisticated album, ranging from Attwood’s actually quite uplifting “decline” to Egsun’s intertwined plucking and bowing on “Abracadabra,” somersaulting us to the end. Time well wasted.
[Release page] Little Greek label Somehow Ecstatic made wise use of its time dividing this split CD between Yellow6 and Egsun. The former blows from cold to warm over two extended guitar drones, before Egsun takes us inside to a cozy place of cello and music boxes. “Concorde” by John Attwood’s Yellow6 opens bitingly cold, howling across the barren, naked skin of a flat plain before lulling to a gentle zephyr gamboling over hill and down dale, which spills over into “The Start to Our Declline,” treated guitar just fuzzy enough around the edges. A sad, martial snare keeps the beat as the guitar tumbles off beyond the horizon.
In utter but complementary contrast, Esgun literally chimes in with a glockenspiel and moony, swaying cello, comfortably nestling in for the first of five tracks, before firing Cupidian volleys of zither into the shimmering air. Unless it’s a dulcimer, because on the spell-biinding “The Ocean Near You,” it appears to be be hammered, opening up the air for a lovely, deep and stirring cello melody.
It’s a soothing and sophisticated album, ranging from Attwood’s actually quite uplifting “decline” to Egsun’s intertwined plucking and bowing on “Abracadabra,” somersaulting us to the end. Time well wasted.
Worth Wasting Time is available on Somehow Ecstatic. [Release page]