Alex Cobb :: Chantepleure (Students of Decay)

Ultimately, though darkness and desolation are hinted at, each track of Chantepleure enfolds a trace of hope within it, perhaps simply elemental—the abyss musically faced and something found inside the nothing, a kind of contemplation turned toward redemption.

The music of Alex Cobb can be seen as going through a process of distillation over the last decade. The list of publications of this Dean of Decay goes back to the mid-’00s and Taiga Remains (cf. recent reissue and cult classic Ribbons of Dust) via Marigold & Cable (2014) and Passage to Morning (2012). Latest, Chantepleure, is trailed as ‘his most optimistic and sanguine musical statement to date,’ and certainly it finds harsher tendencies (cf. Wax Canopy) tamed, articulated differently—as delicate dissonance shading edges, grain in textural voice.

We learn that Chantepleure was created at a time of heartache, isolation and emotional upheaval, and the title (chantepleure (Fr.) = an act of simultaneous crying and singing) prompts a therapeutic take—of music as balm, vectors of affect evoked and assuaged via tender guitar strokes. “Prayer Ring” opens in pacific languor of drone sequences with guitar dissolving into a haunted air a la Kyle Bobby Dunn‘s mope epic (emo pic?) …And The Infinite Sadness; a similar balance of fragile stability and melancholic tilt, aether and warmth, diffuse and cosy, nurtures in its circular dynamic and recursive harmonic cadence. “Anselin,” richer, more secure, lets its drones fall into a lap of loop luxury, while “Disporting With A Shadow” lets in flecks of natural notes and melodic allure. The final “Path of Appearance” reflects the more ambiguous keynote; its hovering drones shimmer and oscillate gently as if a fata morgana. And for all the guitar’s efforts to assert itself in glints and shards, the eponymous path remains in remotion–a slow fade, unresolved.

Ultimately, though darkness and desolation are hinted at, each track of Chantepleure enfolds a trace of hope within it, perhaps simply elemental—the abyss musically faced and something found inside the nothing, a kind of contemplation turned toward redemption. Note 50 prompt punters get a special tape of each of the pieces re-worked by favoured Decay Students Secret Pyramid, Sarah Davachi, Billy Gomberg, and M. Sage.

Chantepleure is available on Students of Decay