Battens envelops the listener in a grayscale world, one that is cold yet somehow comforting, like the stark beauty of an overcast November afternoon.
Windblown sediment finding its home
Study the cover artwork for a long while before pressing play. A haunting grey sailing ship on cold, grey water. Is it coming or going? Is it taking on water? There is a black and white heaviness here that does not hint at a destination. Some records arrive like a dense fog—slow-moving yet immersive, folding into the senses, rather than demanding immediate attention. Battens, the fifth album from Loess (aka Clay Emerson and Ian Pullman), is one of those records. Released April 25, 2025 on Oakland’s n5MD record label, it doesn’t ask for your time so much as it reshapes it, stretching moments into long, contemplative horizons.
From the first listen, Battens envelops the listener in a grayscale world, one that is cold yet somehow comforting, like the stark beauty of an overcast November afternoon. Emerson and Pullman have long been masters of textural nuance, working with subtle rhythm structures and alien ambient tones to craft electronic music that sits somewhere between IDM, dub-influenced minimalism, and the creaky, organic atmospheres of early (but slowed down) Autechre. There’s a confidence here, an accentuation of elements that have always defined Loess but now feel more tangible, even tactile.
Granular static hums ::
Opener “Strake” establishes the album’s tonal center: granular static hums in the periphery while a slow, unhurried beat cycles through the mist. There’s a textural density to it, like the sound of water lapping against something submerged. “Halyard” follows with a brittle, windswept quality, its rhythmic elements delicate but deliberate, like footsteps crunching through frost. “Crowhurst” builds tension with submerged chords and fractured percussion, its skittering details evoking the post-techno abstractions of Vladislav Delay.
“Koepcke” felt like her journey through the air, falling, losing consciousness; landing on unfamiliar ground and then trying to find her way to something like home. “Endoctamb” moves with a quiet pulse, its minimalism recalling the Chain Reaction label’s most introspective moments, but there’s something loose here, more organic, like sound bleeding through walls. The penultimate track “Poche” is a tight little sonic palette cleanser that leads us to “Rime” that takes the listener through an almost reverent stillness, its slow, glacial melodies offering a moment of reflection before disappearing into the ether.
There’s an ever-present sense of the elements at work—frost creeping along glass, windblown sediment finding its home, the ebb and flow of tide against the hull. Yet for all its coldness, there is an undeniable human quality here and this is what binds the album together, its continuity offering hope.
The press release hints at this—how Battens takes the duo’s sound and injects it with a faint but crucial warmth. It’s not just in the music itself but in the spaces between—the way silence lingers, the way a melody briefly rises and then fades, as if reconsidering itself.
Everything fades to grey.
Battens is available on n5MD April 25th, 2025. [Site | Bandcamp]
