Bellows
Undercurrent
Label: Black Truffle Records
Genre: Electronica / Ambient / Experimental
Availability
- LP €26.99 Out of Stock
Where previous releases were primarily based on samples, Undercurrent uses recordings of the duo playing various instruments (guitar, drums, synthesizer) cut into tape loops and then used as the bases for song-length tracks, each of which establishes a central repeating motif while also opening up on close listening to reveal multitudes of improvised detail and subtle shifts in tone, texture, and tempo. Beginning with the mournful sliding tones and obscured fragments of field recordings on the opening track, the LP moves from lush synth pads to super-minimal pings and haunted drone. On ‘6’ and ‘7’, spacious, hanging guitar figures give the music an elegiac quality recalling the work of Dean Roberts and Ielasi’s own earlier guitar-based music (such as the classic Gesine, released on Häpna in 2005). The record subtly builds to its final track, which works the barest of elements – a slowed-tone loop of steel drums, a distant whistle, beeping electronics – into a piece somehow imbued with a quiet grandeur, a fitting conclusion to a record that, like all of the duo's work, is both sonically exploratory and immediately accessible.