A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark describes vast open spaces and seemingly endless vistas, but always viewed at long distance within safe, isolated or enclosed spaces. You can sense the chill from a place of warmth, view the clutter of nature within a shell of diamond cut precision and see the beauty of harsh open spaces from the comfort of your armchair.
[Release page] A series like SEASONS 2011 is something of a risky undertaking for a fledgling boutique label like Serein, one that it has done its best to obviate through a clever marketing strategy. By providing a subscription service that includes all four physical ten-inch vinyl releases (plus digital download) at a reduced price it anticipates a vinyl loving audience with highly eclectic musical tastes, but still offers the option to purchase the releases individually in both a physical and digital format for those with an interest in one particular artist, genre or just generally with less diverse musical interests and tastes. And so the second season in the series comes from Donato Wharton and is as different from its predecessor as the following installments from Nest and Hauschka are destined to be.
With just three previous releases to his name, released by Berlin’s City Center Offices label in 2004 and 2006, A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark breaks a five year silence from Wharton, who decided to purse a career in sound design for stage and theatre. What has prompted this new entry in his discography? The album was conceived whilst traveling and touring extensively with his work, the sound design inspired by the distance, space, and changing landscapes that can be viewed in transit. And if the sound palette isn’t enough to reflect that, then the fleeting nature of these six vignettes (no single track exceeds the four minute mark) together with the track titles leave little doubt in the mind.
A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark is a six-track study in Fenneszian feedback and Sylvain Chauveau white-space minimalism. The treated guitar, gossamer electronic manipulation and thick blankets of soft noise are as much about the break in the clouds as the cover. It’s pretty tricky to pull off using drone-like feedback in a track with any measure of delicacy, but Wharton is channeling Fennesz’ ability to do just that with aplomb here. Rarely is such an experience ultimately pleasurable, but the rays of sunshine that permeate the otherwise chilly blankets of cloud as viewed from above on a trans-Atlantic flight make “A Vast White Solitude” one such case, providing a welcome warmth and comfort.
On “Ink Mountains” and “Breath Held,” brittle guitar chords punctuate clouds of prickly grey noise and feedback spikes, sheets of wind and rain sweep across “A Thousand Miles Of Grass,” whilst “Mind Like A Snow Cloud” is an almost mute moment of stillness, with little more than tinnitus sine waves floating in and out of an ice-crystal filled ether. “In A Mute Scape” conjures up the feeling of motion high above the ground more than any other piece here. The abrupt pressurized hum, muted hiss and thrum of engines, the crackling, distorted surges of background sounds bursting in and out of hearing as if through a pair of malfunctioning headphones with a dry connection recalling aircraft cabin claustrophobia and sensory overload.
A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark describes vast open spaces and seemingly endless vistas, but always viewed at long distance within safe, isolated or enclosed spaces. You can sense the chill from a place of warmth, view the clutter of nature within a shell of diamond cut precision and see the beauty of harsh open spaces from the comfort of your armchair.
The usual Serein quality abounds: matt-laminated, printed outer sleeve with solid purple blocking inside with a die-cut paper inner sleeve housing the ten-inch vinyl disc, and though it lacks the heft of the Colorlist pressing, the sound quality is still excellent, as you would expect from D&M Berlin.
A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark is out now on Serein. [Release page]
Donato Wharton / Ink Mountains (Preview / Excerpt) by Serein
