(08.31.05) Vessel is Gavin Toomey, whom an imdb.com search will reveal has been
responsible for digital video effects on 29 disparate films.
Resist is his aural vacation, his get-away escape to the deep
waters of the ocean. Filled with slippery synths, crackling static
and bubbling polyrhythms, Resist is hard to, well, resist. It
has a lure of cool water and calming waves, of slow currents and
oceanic arms that enfold and comfort the listener.
A piano melody trickles through the digital static of “Ran” like the
sluggish movement of the thermocline, hanging suspended between the
colder depths and the sun-warmed surface water. The title track
“Resist” flows like tiny currents idling in a vast blueness with tiny
patches of sea kelp breathing foamy bubbles on the turgid surface.
There is a field recording in “My Defender” but you hear it through a
haze of water as if you were suspended in a pond, your head mostly
submerged in the sticky water. “Kerna” weeps with strings while dull
boxes stuffed with heavy air are beat in a scattered rhythm against a
sandy shoreline. A carillon sighs through its bells like light
glittering off sunlit water.
While researching Toomey, I stumbled upon a long discussion about the
vfx work he was involved with for Troy and the technical
difficulty of the computerized rendering work made my head spin. I
needed a panacea, a “Calgon! Take me away!” moment. I had
Resist, as in “hard to.” Toomey’s work as Vessel is saturated
with moisture, a delightful plunge into aquatic dub ambience.
Recommended.
Resist is out now on Expanding.
