Airy, spatial, with shuddering modulations, shades of unquiet, odd disembodied voicings in remotion, suggestive dissonant swells.
Celer‘s remote yet intimate tonal stream of consciousness has been a near-constant presence for nigh on a decade. All the more fitting after a 3-year hiatus that boutique Japanese ambient drone soundscape imprint Spekk should swiftly follow Opitope’s Physis with a project of expressive freight congruent with the significative weight of the label’s renewal. Zigzag finds Celer continuing undaunted, notwithstanding the loss of Dani, through strength of Will (Long), familiar timbres tweaked, cadences given fresh currency with vectors from the past in the form of 60s Minimalism and early 80s New Wave. Their pulsing endlessness and enduring harmony imbue Zigzag, along with a more personalized appeal: the pull of minimalism’s persistence and potential for shift between drift and focus combined with a kinetic grounding chimed with a long-harbored (pun intended) desire to afford his own music a tempo for a new pathway forward, its heartbeat inflections entering into felicitous convergence with hearing his first child’s (video below).
Gentle kinetics more than overt rhythms propel it, tilting, axis-shifting, homing in on accents while keeping a distance. Departing from signature style in a layering more pronounced, textures more shifting over long-form duration; attenuated glassine tones cleave to a certain strain of Kosmische carried over from previously (cf. Dying Star). Overall, the whole unfolds to great effect, and no little affect, through a certain doleful dynamic of shivers and timbres, as deep-space synthesis and inner-space amniosis converge—airy, spatial, with shuddering modulations, shades of unquiet, odd disembodied voicings in remotion, suggestive dissonant swells. New Spekks, incidentally, come in imposing oversize custom-made sleeves, posing a potential new challenge to your CD storage ‘solution.’ Purchasers also get a free special CDR album, Seesaw, with handmade Celer sleeve.
Zigzag is available on Spekk.
