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Through his instruments, Andy Othling speaks as much to himself as he does to his listeners. Performing and recording as Lowercase Noises Othling's music is shaped by the pressure of ideas and emotions. The Swiss Illness (42'03") offers eight profound and personal wonderings. Each rich with detail, these tracks reward close and repeated listening. While this album's dramatic power is inseparable from its hushed, sensuous spender, the quieter this work becomes the deeper we may to go into it. Using electric and acoustic guitars, as well as pianos (well-tuned and otherwise), basic tones are fed through layers of echo and reverberation effects - emerging on the other side completely transformed, or at least slightly sweetened. From small moments of grace to grand sonic flowering The Swiss Illness alternately calms the interior monologue and charges the imagination. The unifying power of simply arranged chords enhances the sections of cerebral complexity. Slowly strummed steel strings are sent vibrating through processors, which yields varying new colors of sound. Othling's arrangements project a rare combination of divinity and discipline, instinct and intelligence. His work benefits from a mode of attentiveness closer to that of browsing an art gallery than feeding a jukebox. Listening to this album, which is perpetually changing shape, we move with the shifting soundscape. Spare and diminutive one moment, thick and dense the next, we admire its ability to clear our minds of everything other than the music itself - as what appears to be just a few spare notes and chords conjure an entire world inside our heads. We will eventually leave this realm, and return to the plane of reality - however thick with gloom - with a sense of clarity and composure. The Swiss Illness is so perfectly tuned to our sense of sonic desires that it is beautiful - a thing of beauty moving through the air, and to our ears, and then with our brain's neurons in an eerie synchronicity. But it does not push anything in the real world forward. That task lies with its listeners - as we try to live up to the ideal of this music.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 4 January 2018 |
