| As would a meteor seeking a lost sun, or something gradually falling in darkness, the three tracks on Calm (39'23") move across a listening space. Sounding mildly on the twilight subtractiveLAD (aka Stephen Hummel) uses guitars and synthesizers to realize a softened Spacemusic. With sure pacing and sharp timing this EP does indeed exist as an innovative exercise in concision and imagination, but it will also prompt beautiful daydreams. Calm ably travels through the mind on reverb laden chords, and currents of jewel-toned steel strings. Quietly resplendent, we may imagine the constituent parts of these compositions as smooth shifting shapes that emerge out of fog, breathe, and then dissolve back into nothing. Rounded tones ride alone on an echoing current of flexing sound, while others give off a metal ringing. Recurring themes subtly spin fragments of melody, then transpose these phrases into a novel, vaguely familiar repetition. Threading its soft-hued lunar lullabies into active, ambient forms, a structure is more suggested than it is scored. Ending in a soft plum dawn, we could easily just stay floating there forever. Whether expressing soul searching florid adagios, or a poised private melancholy, Hummel's ideas spread out in elegant waves of notes - each building with an unhurried sense of inevitability. His controlled improvisations move with nuance and empathy. A blur of slow gestures his hovering drones seem to offer the brightest possibilities for new beauty. As the mainstream cites all the evils of a world coming to its end, let us use this music to help renew our sense of wonder. As the future will be thus tamed, a great peace will lay over the land.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 27 June 2019 |
