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Although inspired by his environment the music of loscil sounds like it has been conceived by machines. Scott Morgan's Sketches From New Brighton (55'21") presents a series of nine tracks representative of the near outdoors. His reductions of sea, sky, land and industry into blocky passages of gray sound anticipates a modern culture less involved in the material world, and more aware of the earth and how we effect it. For Morgan ornamentation means not much more than throbbing synth bass, pulsating abstract modulations and breathing drones of dull harmonics. Yet Sketches From New Brighton evokes an astonishing range of moods and colors. Rhythms provide propulsion, as well as a ray of light above the symbolic murmuring backgrounds - while within the slower drifting pieces listeners will find themselves nearly maroon. Development is slow and deliberate throughout this album, but it delivers enough variation to hold our attention - if we so desire. This "thinking person's" Ambient Music is not something listeners "get" into; we must "be" into it. Operating at a high conceptual level, everytime Morgan has a chance to explore new ground he takes it. Allowing Sketches From New Brighton to work on us may lead to a slowed, more sensitive state of mind - one which brings us closer to an artist functioning at the cross section of technology, culture, art and craft.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 25 October 2012 |
