But these are two separate works, and in some respects, this album begins as if it has no knowledge of the first half of the narrative. “Sigil of Brass” is a gentle awakening: guitar slowly plucks out chord shapes while the rest of the band croak and rustle into life as though disturbed from sleep, stirring into a state of consciousness and blearily picking up their instruments again. Even throughout the following nine minutes of “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine”, the band have yet to resound in unison – monotone palm muting provides the track’s only rhythmic propulsion, drifting beneath interweaving blues scales, whammy-driven guitar noise and a sporadic backdrop of maraca shakes. There’s a looseness and liberation about this track that nudges it ever so slightly back towards the drum-free, fluid drone of Earth2, and while the soloing occasionally veers into aimlessness without a song structure to guide it, it’s an interesting break from the “signature” sound that Earth have carved out since 2005’s HEX.

It’s not until “Multiplicity of Doors” that Adrienne Davies returns to her distinctive drum patterns – rich in ride cymbal wash, punctuated by heavy and meaningful thumps of bass and snare – and the band re-enter the lonely Americana of their trademark, plodding through a waltz that continually rises from its murky, bass-centric descent. Meanwhile, the guitars of “The Corascene Dog” teeter continuously on the edge of full-scale improvisation, tethered to recurrent melodic motifs that just hold the piece together. Strings are left to resonate for bars at a time, only to fuse into more intricate harmony combinations mere seconds later, and the track feels in a limbo-cycle of eternal collapse and rebuild.

Closing piece “The Rakehell” is something of a lumbering psychedelic jam, reprising somewhat the indulgent guitar solos of “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine”. But this is indulgence of a most positive kind: it’s driven Earth’s music for years, and forever reminds one of the joy of a single idea wrung until its inner merit materialises. From those melodies that emerge into meaning over ten minutes of constant repetition, the band conjure spontaneous ideas that vaporise the moment they depart from audibility, bringing both players and listener forever further into a circle of enlightenment and intimacy.

The most immediately satisfying element of Nascent – which appears to be the first widely available full-length from signalsundertests – is that it can operate comfortably as one start-to-finish listening experience. Such focus feels like the aftermath of laying every aspect of his musical persona before himself via Mecca; now aware of which areas are most worthy of pursuit, he can take to each with a reinvigorated assurance. Nascent is, to use a broadly encompassing term, an “ambient” work, with the rhythmic element virtually ditched entirely in order to place emphasis on texture design and looser, cinematic narratives.

There’s some good stuff here. Some of the album evokes gigantic arctic caverns, in which sounds shimmer as glints of light catching on the ice. Other times a likeness to the depth and solitude of a space voyage feels more appropriate, as thicker swells of synthesiser chord rush up from beneath and pour in from the sides; guitars crackle into nothing like dying stars, with their slow-motion decay left to reverberate to the edges of the daunting imaginary stereo stretch. “Kapelle” stands out as a particularly engrossing moment, with electronics stuttering like drips of motion on a placid lake of drones. Meanwhile, closing piece “Ebb and Flow” lets feedback see-saw between pitches as a central wave of distortion drives forth and then recedes, with smaller streams of static breaking off and lapping up elsewhere.

But there are moments that fracture the album’s flow (which, on the whole, is permitted a rather smooth and nicely co-ordinated start-to-finish route). A sheened pop vocal cuts into the opening of “Keep Me”, slapped awkwardly over the track’s cathedral ambience and low bass pulses, while some of the most explicit bursts of solo guitar during “Axon” and the “Selah” interludes possess a human indulgence that jars with Graham’s escapist sonic landscapes.  Inversely, there are also occasions where the synthesizer constructs feel a bit too glossy and symmetrical, lacking in the characterising imperfections that etch life into Nascent’s sturdier moves.

While Mecca was a work that sought both the collaborative aid of others and expressed a desire to explore, Nascent sees Graham concentrate his efforts inwards. There’s still the overhanging sense that this is a “collection of works” rather than a singular item of many parts, but there nonetheless exists a consistent mindset (on part of the composer) or perhaps atmosphere (on part of the music) that threads the release together into one, allowing Nascent to burrow continually deeper into itself and take the listener along with it.

The Architecture of Melancholy

Bjärgö’s efforts amount to varying degrees of success. The title track is actually one of the more awkward of the album’s cuts; the vocal melody feels as though it’s hovering uncomfortably above the central chord progression rather than sinking into it, while the track’s repetitious spiral lacks the necessary intrigue to carry it right through its six-minute duration. Inversely, the likes of “The Death of our Sun” utilise monotony to much greater effect; skeletal drum programming nudges the phantom guitar melody and piano motif forward, as Bjärgö wearily announces his apocalyptic despair into an engulfing void. He proves himself most capable when breaking from the song structure too, as in the murky bells and reverberant violin of “Bitteresque”, and the endlessly cascading underwater piano of “Sleep Dep.Loop1”.

The density of Frawley’s pieces is admirable. He juxtaposes periods of fluid movement with abrupt cuts into new territory, forever introducing new sounds and states, piling electronics onto reverberant voices and gentle breaths of flute. However, this ceaseless motion means that the album floods right through the listener as a fleeting period of bewilderment, rather than having any long-term impact. The only feeling that sticks (in the case of this reviewer at least) is a distaste for those glossy, unconvincing clips of people talking about their memories and experiences, but Carnival is otherwise enjoyable while it lasts, even if its imprint evaporates the moment it comes to a close.

Rosy Reflections is very implicative; it’s not particularly suggestive of a particular place, neither announcing an allegiance to major or minor keys, or positive or negative mood. Listeners will perhaps either dismiss this as timid and indistinctive, or be allured by Long’s mysterious sonic clouds, from which any number of imaginary shapes and significances may be derived. It’s a simple release that makes no particular effort to seize a space all of its own – likening itself to many other artists operating within such abstract and ethereal ambient – but such observations only surface in retrospect, and make no blemish on the hypnotic powers of Rosy Reflections’ gentle to and fro.

This disturbing sense of intimacy isn’t always comprised of spiky, harsh details. “Alligator Born In Slow Motion” softens the jagged edges into muffled drones and lingering sub-bass heard beyond the moist casing of the womb – the listener is still tightly enveloped, but in a manner that provokes more comfort than unease. Closing piece “Don’t Stop Now You’re Killing Me” even dares to push the album’s imposing walls outward for its opening minutes (if only slightly), and provokes a slight sense of space with its ghoulish blur of feedback and string resonance. Of course, these slight breaks in intensity make its return all the more potent. This final track is perhaps the most striking example, veering beautifully between capture and release; the listener is tortured with illusional flashes of liberation, as lush drone expanses slam shut at the hands of torture device clunks and suffocated drum kit.

We Used to Dream Awake appears to take a retrospective look at childhood, sounding both fond and sombre in nature. It casts an eye back to the brief and wondrous romances, the triviality of day to day concerns and the playful energy that gradually start to pale and discolour through adult life, and while its brittle emotion and melodic simplicity lend themselves to these reflections of youth, there’s also a sense of weariness that arises as such memories bring present age into perspective.

Out of the five tracks, “Jeugd” is by far the most endearing. As with the rest of the EP, drums come as one-dynamic, programmed punches – lending more to emphasis than any real momentum – while dry, clean guitars are plucked and strummed through a series of simple, ballad-like progressions. Here, the balance between genuine emotion and disarming pop is at its most harmonious, with the “catchier” elements forming a deliberately translucent veil through which a deeper sadness can be subtly perceived. But even the release’s finest cut becomes unstuck with an outro that gradually sheds the heartfelt nature of its earlier gestures – drums resort to the beats and handclaps of any post-millennium indie cliché, while the closing melody dilutes the charming flow of the track’s first half into a hollow four-chord cycle.

And while the lyrics initially carry a certain sweetness in their sweeping emotional statements, their naivety begins to leave a craving for something of genuine poetic substance after too long. Lines such as “We said we should try again one more time / Give us a chance to save what we built together” feel possessive of a greeting card genericism, and can’t help but bounce dispassionately off the surface instead of sinking in. It’s not until the closing two minutes of closer “Love + Hate” that He Died While Hunting start to reconnect again, swelling with inflections of distortion slipping in behind the cleaner jangles (think Cocteau Twins’ gooey melancholy), although these brief glimmers of goodness are ultimately far too intermittent.

What makes Boston’s Cyclorama an appropriate venue for the Cold Pin installation? 

The massive size of the space allowed me to make the piece at the scale I imagined it to be.  It’s an incredibly high dome, so the sound is very special in there.  There was so much reverberation that I had to scale back the amount of material to allow the space to speak for itself.

How difficult was it to realise your intentions for the installation? Did the practicality of setting up the installation pose any issues during the process?

There were tons of problems that needed to be worked through, but that’s to be expected when building any mechanical system.  It’s been a strange transition getting used to the pace of this type of work.  I do a lot of visual projects, both drawings and prints in addition to writing scores for performances, so I’ve gotten used to putting in tons of work without any feedback or immediate response.  This is a whole other level of waiting for information from the project because of the amount of time it takes to even make one sound happen.  The mechanical component was tricky to get working perfectly, and then figuring out how to reinforce and tune the strings so that they don’t snap a wall in two.   The distance between an idea and realization gets spelled out clearly for you when working on this type of project.

How did you decide upon factors such as rhythm/duration/sequence of the motor activity, or the width/length/tension of the strings?

For Cold Pin in particular I had to really be aware of the location.  It is such an extraordinary room acoustically that I wanted to make sure to allow enough time and space for the decay.  For me, the decay of strings or reverberation is the most interesting part of it to begin with.  I thought I had factored this in, but when getting in the space I ultimately had to leave even more.  I tried to come up with and use string lengths and gauges that would work with the room, and also would visually be organized how I want. Sonically, my process for coming up with the order is often in my head, imagining what I want it to be, then I’ll write it on paper, translate that into code and get feedback from a micro controller with small LED lights that help give me a sense of the attack patterns.  Then I adjust the code further in the space to tweak it just right.

How have people reacted to the installation? What sorts of emotional responses has it elicited from attendees?

It’s been very positive in my experience.  One thing that I haven’t expected is the amount of people wanting to lie down and talk or hang around the installation as it goes on.  The installation is constantly reordering its own material so it has a never ending or cadencing structure.   In the case of one installation in Shreveport, another installation I did involved strings that were over 200 feet long going over two empty water basins, people were pretty surprised at the way strings that long sound.

Was it always your intention to compose a piece of music alongside the installation? 

Yes, I imagined them together. I’m interested in blurring lines and I like the conflict between the vertical structure of installation and the horizontal nature of music.  I’lI imagine them together and apart, and had to figure out material that would work in both contexts.   The idea of creating a haze around what the ‘object’ of the project is, is what most interests me.  When the make up of the material reaches such a large scale, like in the case of my Collecting Basin installation, with strings as long as 200 feet, an interesting transition occurs where the line between instrument and environment becomes blurred.

Was this piece intended to slot inside the existing atmosphere of the installation, or place the installation within a new atmospheric context? 

The complication that I was after makes me say yes to both of those questions, but one difference in my thinking is that the music is not inside or in addition to the installation. I think of the installation as a frame in which the music sits inside both visually in performance and sonically as well, but the frame has different meaning and an integrity of its own when it has something in it then without it.  The installation is in a sense the vertical architecture of the piece, because of its vertical pull, and the music controls its left to right motion.  It tugs at the music to a stand still.  I’m interested in slicing the architecture of the space with the string. Dividing the room into lines visually as the music and installation divides the space sonically.

What qualities do the additional musicians featured on the record possess that made them appropriate collaborators for the composition version of Cold Pin?

With this particular group I can really use a short hand style of direction, which is really appealing.  I don’t need to explain or write too much down, because they know what I’m after so I can simply do notation at home for my own thinking, and then dictate through language what I’m after.  The level of musicianship is so high with all of them that if I did need to write it down they could all read and do all of that perfectly. They understand the language, which allows it to flow freely.   If I’m working with classical oriented musicians I really have to write things down and explain everything in a certain way – adjust my writing to get the effect I’m after, because we haven’t discussed enough what the design or the idea really is.  It’s all about translating ideas specific for the group your working with so that everyone gets it and can let the material speak for itself.

Do you consider there to be an optimum environment or setup for listening to the Cold Pin composition?

Well, the best environment is in the space with the installation hearing the ensemble composition and then spending sometime in the environment with the installation running on its own. The record is a documentation of two performances with the piece and has a different life on its own, and I’m happy with that.  We are in an interesting time for dealing with the environment around musical objects.  People consume most of their music through the computer, the same means that they consume all other data, and information in their life good and bad. By having a non-static form around a project it breaks this pattern down, and confuses what the object is, giving it more physicality and less all at once, turning it into an idea.

What’s next for yourself and your music? 

I’m working on a few new projects, a larger scale installation that will be up at the Issue Project Room (Brooklyn) in June, which is through the Turbulence Commission.  It’s going to use a network and be integrated with a remote site projecting material to multiple installation sites.  I’m researching some new mechanical devices that I’m planning to use, and I’m writing a large ensemble score that will be performed and recorded as part of the project.  There are going to be some prints and drawings involved in the project as well.  In addition to this I’m looking into venues to do a installation using extremely long strings.  I’ve researched some piano wire that goes as long as 2000 feet and would love to do a mechanical piece off a building or across an outdoor park that uses this type of scale, if I can find a spot to work on it.

What can be expected from your performance at the Pan Festival later this month?

I’m going to be playing a new piece I’ve been working on for drums, bowed crotales and a new mechanical setup.

 
Eli Keszler’s website - http://elikeszler.com/

Cafe Oto - http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/

It’s a shame, as the absence of piano really sets the group’s atmospheric conjury into motion. “Washing in Slow Colours” casts thick drone chords into panoramic horizons, before scattering ghostly vibraphone echoes across it like the smudged glow of stars. The occasional click and rustle of activity (metallic jangles, barely audible clicks) become the movement and telescope adjustments inside an expansive space observatory. Meanwhile, the chatter of nighttime insects and blossoming saxophones of “Siamese Bloom” place the listener in amongst towering flower silhouettes during a summer evening, leaving one to dream into an imaginary garden.

The reverberant choral loops of “This Crying Age” take Night Blossom spiralling away from earth altogether, with overlaps of whispered poetry acting like a soft and intimate farewell. It’s perhaps the album’s most penetrative track and could have arguably been doubled in length (particular as the album is all over and done with in a swift 39 minutes) but its fleetingness brings with it a melancholic longing that somewhat befits the piece’s sombre mood. Perhaps a follow up album will resume the journey from where it so blissfully trails off.

For The Narrow Garden, this atmosphere finds itself carried between various stylistic terrains: through the playful, middle-Eastern tinged percussion and playful ribbons of melody of “Forest Sama’i”, into the dissonant string mutations of the title track, through the medieval diversion of “Mineralia” and then upward into the repetitious release of “Invisus Natalls”. The title of this work seems to sonically manifest itself in a variety of different ways: as a work with a greater emphasis on the “vertical” than the “horizontal” (tracks develop by mounting melodic variations on top of a single idea, rather than moving through chronologically sequenced sections), and as a work that flourishes with both organic beauty and undertones of claustrophobia and unease.

The most alluring aspect of the album is the way in which melody often moves as in twisting, dancing streams – there’s a concrete conviction within the mercurial cascade, like an enlightened mind that acts with both grace and assertion simultaneously. With that in consideration, those melodic elements that are either too simplistic (“Pure Nothing”) or more aimless (the unnecessary flute solo of “Invisus Natalls”) carry considerably less appeal. Kang possesses the wonderful ability to retain a lively spontaneity within his precise, pre-determined composition, and The Narrow Garden is at its best when it showcases this. Thankfully, that’s most of the time.