Solar Fields, Loscil, and Midlake
EarthShine
Solar FieldsIt's been crazy busy at work lately, and Solar Fields' (Magnus Birgersson) Mirror's Edge Score has kept me going through the worst of it. The game is all about momentum and flow, and the soundtrack does its part in pacing the chase scenes (the last two minutes of "New Eden" nearly had me sprinting from my desk towards the window, just from the sheer adrenaline of it), but some of the quieter songs, like "Kate"'s third movement, hold up well.
I started looking into Birgersson's solo albums and found most of them to be more deep space music, which isn't a bad thing at all. Movements, especially, is lush and warm.
But the big album cover I've got over there is for the EarthShine release. It's the heaviest of his solo albums, as far as I can tell, walking a strange line between electronic ambient and trance. "Black Arrow" stands out as an exciting ten minute journey, a flight among the stars mixed with a smattering of tribal drums.
Endless Falls
LoscilI was on my way to pick up the new Gorillaz release when I got distracted and ended up getting the fantastic Endless Falls by Loscil (Scott Morgan) instead. The album opens and closes with rainfall—it's raining outside my window as I write this—and it captures the mood through slowly developed ambient loops and just a hint of glitch that feels analog and natural, not processed or programmed.
Then the last track, "The Making of Grief Point", is something else entirely. The tone of the album suddenly shifts, it becomes dark and tense. And it has something ambient music so rarely has: words. Dan Bejar's spoken monologue is a doubtful analysis of his current work on Grief Point, an album that does not exist.
It's cool how for my part, this sleight of hand,
The trick of making something confounding and great, and potentially horrible, drawn up from air,
All this is no longer of any interest.
In fact, even seeing things in this light depresses me,
And so I often come home at night depressed by what we have done,
What we are doing.
It's good, it means I've changed. […]The answer to the making of Grief Point is: picnic baskets filled with blood.
It is indeed "confounding and great, and potentially horrible," and the effect of the his crisis is overwhelming. Then the rainfall returns to close out the album, soothing and cathartic. I relaxed muscles I did not know had been tense and let out a breath I did not know I had been holding.
The Courage of Others
MidlakeI grew up listening to a lot of folk rock from the 60s and 70s. Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Simon and Garfunkel were among my parent's favorites artists. I was really surprised when I found Midlake's recently released The Courage of Others, which on a first listen sounds like it's been transported from forty years ago: gorgeous guitar work, both acoustic and electric, layers of quiet percussion, a smattering of flutes, and brooding vocals.
It's an album best listened to as an album. Some songs work well enough on their own, "Rulers, Ruling All Things" especially, but the album really pulls together as a whole.
Anyway, I've been told I must now go listen to The Trials of Van Occupanther, so if you'll excuse me, I'll go and do just that.