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The closer together Hotel Neon moves, the brighter they shine. The fraternity of Michael Tasselmyer, Andrew Tasselmyer and Steven Kemner use their electric guitars as a reaction to the fervor and over complexity of the mainstream world. The changing emotional shades of Remnants (33'43") (only their second recorded endeavor as a group) is a welcome stimulus to the imagination. Made up of subtle successive gestures, connected together by the mysterious gift of luminous clairvoyance, Remnants cites sound itself as the chief personage of each of its four tracks. Designing in atmospheric values these sonorities produce interesting effects on our nervous systems. Chords are used simply as material building blocks - suggesting rather than expressing such luxuriant beauty and tender sympathy. This ensemble works in the art of understatement, the art of the subconscious. Their music is devoid of system and dry formula, and enjoys intelligent company. A murmur of notes flowing under a veil of rushes, their music glows like an organism. Less firm and clear in its outlines these works produce a remote effect. Blissed out washes of processed guitar tones enter, sustain and suspend into sonic cloud masses, while slow harmonic shifts align with nocturnal breathing. Electrically smooth, then digitally rough, these jagged timbres are arbitrarily introduced into the accompaniment - eliciting a fleeting moment of alert response. From a feel of disquiet, to the affirming, Hotel Neon holds and moves textures and moods around the listening space well enough to penetrate our thoughts and touch our dreams. Perhaps charged with vagueness, subtle variations and thoughtful construction are nevertheless present to an attentive ear - as Hotel Neon produces arrangements of some serious value, for the intellect and for the heart.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 7 April 2016 |
