I woke up in the middle of the night, the room lit up by enigmatic light. I couldn't sleep. Half-slept, half-dreaming, fragments of thoughts quietly travelling in different directions, none of them having any force or shape. The state in which thoughts about work are seamlessly transformed into some hinted-at memory. Looked at the light through the curtains. Snowfall.
Lots of artists out there move around on the same territory that Library Tapes, post-rock project from Sweden, has been exploring now over the range of a few records (the latest one was released a few months ago and it is said to have taken a different turn in terms of style). Their closest neighbour might be Goldmund. But something makes Library Tapes stand out. Field recordings and piano. Ambient noise. Nothing very original in that. But still. This is employment of ambience at its most accessible, yet it is not the sonic, spaced-out sound clouds that is the flip side of trance music. Arvo Pärt, Für Elina, but something different, too.
Höstluft is creaky piano sounds. Pitchfork talks about how Library Tapes focuses on the materiality of the sound of the piano. I thought about that, too. Simple melodies. Silence. The ambient sounds range from artificial (as in machines) to natural (as in steps or a gush of wind). But its not as if ambience/field recordings are employed to augment the melodies; it could be just the other way around, melodies as a continuation of sounds. Ambience enfolds the piano and the piano enfolds ambience.
This is not stern or icy like, for example, Thomas Köner's ambient music (I mention it because I like his sense of minimalism) but nor does Library Tapes indulge in emotional drilling of the type that some post-rock acts have such a sweet tooth for. Höstluft (and their other records) sets one's associations adrift. This is minimalist music but there's nothing academic about it what so ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment