A fabulous set of heavy-lid hypnagogue ambient drone drift.
It’s not long since Constellation Tatsu‘s Winter Batch, which included the lovely likes of Chihei Hatakeyama’s You’re Still In It and Havenaire’s Tremolo. That tape hiss happiness abounds at the margins is down to the likes of Oakland’s self-styled ‘adventurous with spiritual artistic sensibilities’ cassette specialist. Rude health is in continued evidence in its just-in Spring batch, comprising unknowns—Yorishiro’s I and H Takahashi’s Body Trip–and an oldie (Dang Olsen Dream Tape’s Zonk).
Stand-out, though, and object of our interest here comes from the somewhat mysterious L’eoscombu Couti. Five Cambridge Utilities is a fabulous set of heavy-lid hypnagogue ambient drone drift from Quebec-based Stewart Bird, not in fact a total unknown, having presented as L’eoscombu Couti on previous intriguing self-releases, lac des psaumes et la moissonneuse-batteuse, and Loss Leader. Esoteric fragments of discourse attend his webpage and—more interestingly for the musically curious—soundcloud, where Eleh-esque drone piece “Sendoff for Tony Conrad” gives some idea of the scope of his operations; allusive links made to his work–‘DAWN. Vagues déferlantes.’ (= crashing waves/breaking surf)—can be felt with full hypnagogic heft on Five Cambridge Utilities, and the likes of “U-III” (below) with its spare but enveloping guitar oneiromancy, and “U-V,” replete with ‘dark-melodic, pseudo-ethnological, post-ambient’ playlist potential.
Overall, L’eoscombu Couti deceptively effortlessly enacts Constellation Tatsu’s mission ‘…at last to pass beyond the realm of hearing, into that of sense, like soundless vibration.’ (Faulkner). Fit for flotation tank horizontalists or distracted aural room tinters alike, Five Cambridge Utilities taps into some of the haze-glaze textures familiar from vaporwave tropes, deploying them to greater, more emotive and ambiguous, affect/effect.
Five Cambridge Utilities is available on Constellation Tatsu. [cassette | digital]
