|
Settling into the gentle gravity of the Ambient Chamber Music genre the duo Earthroom realize work within the measured motion of atmosphere and mood. Musicians Tyler Pursel and Morgan Evans-Weiler manage to both haunt and illuminate your psyche. Their Heuristic Environments (42:54) navigates the aural ether slowly and with care. The eleven idyllic compositions here are remarkable achievements of the imagination - pleasing to the ear and quieting to the mind. Sedated woodwinds, violin and piano notes wander and roam among breathing washes of warm chords and artful, dreamy samples. Moving from reasoned ambient blurs and fragmented found sounds to a conjunction of cogitating circuits and crackling patch cords Heuristic Environments is an album meant, not for the masses of the mainstream, but for the loyal royal listeners of our realm. Multi-layered and lulling its conscious and subconscious perspectives expects an otherworldly reach of the imagination. We, the subsided, absorb Earthroom's interludes of lightness and insistence awash in their quiet, subtle details and puzzling philosophical possibilities. Yet, even in this chilly blankness each creation methodically resolves into a vivid state of wordless quietude - providing a pleasant encounter impossible to overthink. From abstraction to consonance by way of such strange vibrational rituals Heuristic Environments is so exquisitely balanced that one scarcely notices its separate elements. The music flickers briefly alive, shares its private melody and moody tone, then vanishes. Teeming with reassuring harmonic shades and hues Pursel & Evans-Weiler present a profound and intimate sonic statement. Those of us attending this album will know our own brilliance by recognizing theirs.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 21 March 2024 |
