| Artist: Ian Boddy & Erik Wollo Album: Frontiers Label: DiN | 
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Frontiers (56'31") is like air conditioning for the mind. The first collaboration between Ian Boddy & Erik Wøllo, these men of deep mind bring the listener to a region where a chilly meaning may be placed on their work. Entering this music feels like falling into a snow cloud. The musical air, thick with frosty timbre, seems to flow all around the listener. Illuminated by the strong sharp light of passion, Frontiers provides ten tracks that flow from one arctic scenario to the next. The measured motion of the tuneful heart-opening songs feature a range of the elegant electronic rhythms both Boddy and Wøllo have become known for. Synthesized percussion gently purls in ordered chips and chirps while string chords hold and lines of melody unfurl. Wøllo's E-bow guitar tone is often present, as is his signature slide. But we also find Boddy's Gliss-keyboard sounding very similar as he bends and drifts between notes - both musicians holding forth with their own unique story. The dreamy ambient tracks energize in a different way, swallowing us up in their frigid sonic contour. Expressive arrangements of texture, tone and form these sections arise out of drones, sustaining notes and slowly folding sonics - all merged artfully with recordings from nature. It may be that the frontiers this album refers to might be found within the vast cold lands of the magnetic north. But Frontiers is also an open creative space for Boddy and Wøllo. Their music is like an organism, continuing to grow with each manifestation - and like the wild, yielding new revelations each time that it is explored.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 4 July 2013 | |
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