The air is certainly chilly and the water freezing, but there is much shared warmth here. Painfully unprepossessing, McGowan interweaves emotion with emotionless nature suborning neither to the other.
It begins on the Isle of Arran, where Fraser McGowan regained his center and captured field recordings that would be painstakingly belabored in order to create a reminder. In The Places Where I Worship You, the air is certainly chilly and the water freezing, but there is much shared warmth here. Painfully unprepossessing, McGowan interweaves emotion with emotionless nature suborning neither to the other.
A pale balloon sun rises “On Lochranza Shores,” barely illuminating scenery easier heard than seen, a light trickle over smooth stone. “Sun Downing” twirls, briefly and brilliantly, before round, meticulously woven “Wreaths” are cast upon the water, now rushing with greater urgency but to a calm heartbeat. A lulling drone and a piano alone while an old record spirals in its run off in the corner—the home comfort of “Our Own Loch View.” A long walk, the spray off a waterfall “Your Absent Breath,” as the mind ping-pongs with thought. Finally you find yourself “Often Nowhere,” with the record still spinning in the corner. And that’s fine. Lord Byron said, “There is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea and music in its roar.”
The Places Where I Worship You is available on Dronarivm.
