Quiet, fiddly needlework and big, reverberant soundscaping, textures, melodies, ambiences and mood adjusters are assayed on a baker’s dozen tracks covering just under forty-eight minutes.
[Release page] It is telling that in introducing himself on the Striate Cortex website, Mike Orr pitches that he is “looking to do music for film or television, also for some video art.” Telling because his debut album as Spaces Between, Untitled plays like a job résumé or portfolio of possibilities. Quiet, fiddly needlework and big, reverberant soundscaping, textures, melodies, ambiences and mood adjusters are assayed on a baker’s dozen tracks covering just under forty-eight minutes.
Although patchy and titleless, it certainly does’t give the impression of being done hastily. With his guitar and a computer plugged in, he double-tracks without every tracking back, though he may occasionally wander a little off-track. It’s a roomy salesman’s suitcase full of samples, and can be engrossingly wide-screen, like “Stretched Beyond Their Limits,” only to proffer a mere sketch called “Pretty as Love” and then the full-throated and ecstatic “Buckfaster,” all in immediate succession. “Westerly Winds Prevail” and the longest track at nearly six-and-a-third minutes, “Lullabys for Sleep” are truly transcendent pieces, cumulonimbus clouds of guitar that makes me want to buy a full length, ambient album from Orr on the installment plan.
Untitled is available on Striate Cortex. [Release page]
