Rapid Fire Reviews: Ambient Legends
The Clocktower At The Beach - William Basinski
Secret Life - Fred again... & Brian Eno
When it comes to ambient music, with the exception of Brian Eno it doesn't get any more legendary than William Basinski. The tape loop god is responsible for one of my favorite albums of all time The Disintegration Loops which when combined with its three sequels have collectively soundtracked some of the most thorough dissociations of my entire life. But William Basinski isn't a one trick pony and his return to those droning impressions on 2017's A Shadow In Time was a welcome one, as was it's much more difficult to pin down follow-up In Time Out Of Time a few years later. But the real crown jewel of Basinski's recent output is 2020's Lamentations, whose haunting darkness came served with a Caretaker-esque nostalgia that still enthralls me from start to finish. That flirtatiousness with nostalgia returns on this 42-minute archival piece that has sat unreleased since 1979. I've expressed interest in the past with the interesting ways artists can play with musical timelines regarding when music is recorded versus when their fans actually get to engage with it so this music has my interest before I ever even hit play.
While the album is presented as one long composition it's very far from being that simple. The stylistic motifs evolve consistently throughout the composition and though they maintain a cloudy haze the presentation often varies wildly. Take the early synth drones which cut through the fog with both a loud and clear dynamism even as they echo off into space but by 15 minutes into the piece they've become so thoroughly obscured that even the loudest blaring simply mushes into the ever-increasing haze. This is also the point on the album where it starts to fade out to near silence once every few minutes sometimes as a sort of sonic reset though other times it just returns with a similar sounding palette. Shortly after this sequence if where the droning portion of the record begins smothering everything in not just fuzz but deep rumbling darkness that makes all the once quite clear synth sounds suddenly feel like they're echoing from an abyss. While this composition does have its lulls in intrigue and sonic motifs that might seem to overstay their welcome I was really surprised by just how much I enjoyed it not only my first time through but on every follow-up listen. It feels like a look back into a more brash and rough around the edges version of William Basinski that not only provides contrast with an album like Lamentations, but stands up as compelling ambient music on its own. 7/10
The alliance between dubstep pioneer Skrillex, micro house innovator Four Tet, and pandemic breakout DJ Fred again has been one of the strangest stories of 2023 so far culminating in a widely praised Coachella headlining slot that nobody could have predicted even 6 months ago. Well, the surprises kept coming last week when Four Tet himself surprise announced that his label was releasing a new collaborative album from Fred and the genre's inventor Brian Eno himself. Eno himself described the project as different from most of what he had released in the past which got me even more excited for what was coming next. This album is far from the first to ever try and integrate vocals into ambient compositions without interrupting their serenity, Grouper isn't really the first either but she probably did it the best if you want to check that out. But beyond that VERY talked about element the album also strays from ambient conventions by placing its synth tones into sample heavy almost field-recording style compositions, with somewhat mixed results.
It won't surprise most people to know that some of these tracks whose refrains veer them away from more conventional ambient styles are the ones that didn't click with me. For example, in an otherwise strong run of opening tracks Secret sort of works to fracture some of the beauty and I think despite the gentle performance there's something about the vocals that takes me out of the track's atmosphere, especially in the first half. Thankfully, this song is in the minority on the record and for the most part I find it to be consistently quite peaceful, supplemented by quality textural editions and obscured vocals that literally make the songs feel lived in. Highlights on the album include songs like Radio and Safety which take an almost sound collage approach weaving together material from different sources throughout and assembling them into these vivid and optimistic compositions. While this album isn't re-inventing the wheel it does manage to stand out from the crowd and in a genre like ambient that isn't always the easiest thing to do. Sure it's inconsistent but it shows the promise Fred again... has for building interesting additions on top of the foundations of ambient and it comes with the high floor of Brian Eno's decades of brilliance underneath it. 6.5/10
12 - Ryuichi Sakamoto
Pivoting to a legend of Japanese ambient music, and really just Japanese electronic music in general as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto's music was still making the rounds on sights like RYM and BEA even before his death earlier this year. For someone that was a musical innovator for decades, it's no surprise to see Sakamoto continuing to experiment with new ideas on this project which combines highly synthetic and minimal electronic passages with achingly human sounds like breathing and groaning. Unlike some ambient projects and some of Sakamoto's work in the past, the tracklisting here actually does play a major role in the sound of each individual track. The opener for example is a pretty conventional ambient affair though one I really enjoy while the second track pivots into a surreal combination of echoey piano keys and ASMR nose breathing. I worry that just describing the record in those terms will make it feel like an experience comparable to hearing someone crunch a pickle on a tiktok. Trust me, even when the biological elements of the record are overbearing, they're still implemented with good taste in mind. Even then though, not everything is perfectly tolerable. As tracks stretch to 7,8, or even nine full minutes of methodical breathing sounds listening in headphones starts to feel like a chore. I'm not sure that some of the long compositions here are the right idea because they often do really start off feeling like someone confronting their own mortality and the very concept of living through musical passages. But as time goes on it just starts to remind me of how annoying it is listening to someone audibly breathing. By no means does that "ruin" the record though. The sonic spaces are explorative and interesting despite their often sparse presentation and even some of the most indulgent compositions do at least get off to compelling starts. While I admire the sonic spaces the record presents listeners and I admire the concept quite a bit, in execution some of these songs stand directly in their own way when they didn't really need to. Ultimately while I don't LOVE this record I think it's fitting that the career of such an innovator would come to a close on an appropriately ambitious undertaking. 6/10
