Rapid Fire Reviews: Ambient with Burial, Brian Eno & Tom Rogerson

Streetlands EP - Burial

It's been a weird few years for Burial as fans lament the loss of the more beat-driven elements of his music and ultimately the loss of drums entirely. You'd think that would mean that fans who come down more on the ambient side in the first place like me would be thrilled, but even I haven't necessarily been head over heels for the recent Burial output. His Antidawn EP earlier this year felt like the most significant statement any Burial project had made in a long time in concept, but it turned out to be yet another VERY loose collection of ambient motifs. Thankfully, Streedlands while still a very disconnected trio of ambient songs, does actually seem to give a lot more attention to how these songs develop and how the individual parts form a whole. A good example of this comes from the title track whose nearly 15 minutes makes up about half of the EP all on its own. It opens up with a thick cloudy mix and the pitched-up fizzled vocal samples that you'd expect to hear on a Burial track before the background becomes clearer and the vocals shift into something more methodical and clear. The song even circles through a moment of angelic clarity and all the way back into the thick haze and whisper quiet vocals all while taking care to make the transitions between parts feel purposeful. The third track Exokind is the one I think is most likely to appeal to old Burial fans with synth leads that mirror some of his older songs though they certainly don't last for that long before a chilling ambient haze comes in. They do return to the song though and it's a sonic element that I think fans will appreciate even if it doesn't do as much for me as the core ambient soundscapes of the two other songs. While I do think this is lacking something that the best Burial tracks of both his D&B and ambient era deliver these three songs are some of my favorite Burial works in years. The rich atmosphere creates a layer of anticipation that's at the core of so much great dark ambient music and watching the way it extrapolates on and plays with those sounds is generally quite satisfying. 7/10

FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE - Brian Eno

While I think it would be impossible to tune into literally everything Brian Eno released he is by all accounts one of the most influential and impactful musicians alive right now and when he's gearing up to drop his first solo album in years and it also prominently features his own vocals, I've gotta give this one a try. Eno doesn't waste time diving into the records differences either as the opener Who Gives A Thought features a thick ambient haze cut through by his bunt singing of some politically charged lyrics, it's a great opener. In fact, the whole opening run of the record is pretty good highlighted by a great deep cut in Icarus or Bleriot that does have vocals, but deploys them in a way that is almost part of the ambient soundscape. In other songs, he is singing more directly with his vocals soaring in over top of the mix. I think that style of presentation is to give a definitive worldliness and importance to what Eno is saying and the writing certainly lives up to it, but sonically I'm not sure a lot of these fragile ambient piano pieces can hold up to the vocals overtaking them that strongly. This does sort of become an issue when the record contrasts some beautiful ambient pieces with vocal cuts that just feel like they're taking themselves way too seriously and aren't as big as they sound. There are definitely some soundscapes worth hearing among the deep cuts and the 8-minute closing track Making Gardens Out Of Silence is something every Eno fan will want to have a take on, but I don't think this is one of the more essential pieces of the modern Brian Eno discography. 6/10

Retreat To Bliss - Tom Rogerson

Tom Rogerson is an artist I've had my eye on since he dropped his 2017 collaboration with Brian Eno Finding Shores on Dead Oceans. I really enjoyed that record and felt like it was pretty underrated to the point where I was feverishly anticipating Rogerson's return to ambient music. That came on this record which flirts the line between conventional piano pieces and ambient music throughout with some of its most noteworthy tracks making use of absolutely every little sonic detail of the keys.  The record also has vocals worked in and unlike Eno's new record they are used much more often as supplemental sounds to the ambient compositions rather than to tell much of any kind of story. The intimacy with the keys is a big part of the record as saying they have a prominent role is almost underselling just how deeply familiar you'll become with the sound of the pianos across this record. It's a feature that I like quite a bit about the music here even if it can occasionally become way too much in certain moments. The best example is probably Open Out Span Wide View which starts off okay but the rising intensity of every little keystroke gets to a point where it just feels more shrill and annoying than interesting sonic texture. Thankfully there are also moments where the record lives up to every expectation of brilliance you could lay on its concept. Opening track Descent is a great start to the record that really does feel like a transition from a normal sound palette into the record's piano intimacy. Similarly, the closing combo of Retreat To and Coda ends off the record in a really strong fashion. I like this record and I think that fans of ambient and piano-driven music should give it a try, though I'm not sure it will rewrite the book on anything. One thing it did do is at least get me paying attention to anything Tom Rogerson does going forward because building on this would mean a great album is in his future. 7/10