Daniel Avery :: Love + Light (Phantasy / Mute)

Love + Light is divided in two sides, totaling an hour—but it is also a bridge between two well-known poles of electronic tendencies, ambient and techno. In fact, Avery’s newest album might be one of the purest expressions of this artistic blend in recent memory.

Wide, gripping and inspiring

It’s a fastuous year for Daniel Avery. Hot off the trail of Illusion of Time—his collaborative effort with well-known synthesist and sound explorer Alessandro Cortini (a record you should hear if you haven’t), he published this summer with Phantasy / Mute his third full-length record Love + Light—a dual name for a dual album.

Love + Light is divided in two sides, totaling an hour—but it is also a bridge between two well-known poles of electronic tendencies, ambient and techno. In fact, Avery’s newest album might be one of the purest expressions of this artistic blend in recent memory. This dichotomy is immediately expressed with the first two tracks of the first half, “London Island” and “Dusting for Smoke.” While the opener is a luminous soundscape sheen of water and the next track immediately opens on a synthesizer motif underpinned by an insistent kick which is soon supported by classic techno percussion. It is to be noted though that both of these tracks belong equally on this album, and that, past the initial surprise of finding this techno gem immediately after the beautiful beatless opener, the ethereal aesthetic of Daniel Avery pervades the sound design of the entire project, taking in recognizable stylistic elements but never giving in to dullness or easy clichés.

The earnestness of the compositions and Avery’s musical drive are very hard to resist throughout. As usual with such deceptively simple pieces, the devil is in the details—the specific character of a kick drum, the precise layering of an ambient passage, the ease with which the composer can take us from airy gauze to sleek underwater pressure (“Infinite Future”), while the record gains in aggressive forces inch by inch as we go from one side to another. As a noise aficionado, it was difficult not to smile at the grittiness of “Into The Arms Of Stillness,” or the post-industrial feel of “Pure Life.”

The record was published in June, so on the off-chance it slipped past your radar, give it a spin—it is wide, gripping and inspiring.

Love + Light is available on Phantasy / Mute. [Bandcamp]