Seabuckthorn is one of those artists
best enjoyed over the course of an album rather than in small doses
and on this latest release his impressionistic acoustic guitar work
once again manages to conjure up dreamy landscapes, campfires and
woodlands, all with his signature sense of menace and foreboding. The
Silence Woke Me is Andy Cartwright's second album for French
label Bookmaker Records but is at least his fifth release (not taking
into account various self-released EPs and small-runs of mini CDs)
and at this point in time Cartwright is a masterful composer.
Building upon last year's excellent In Nightfall, The
Silence Woke Me weaves a lot more rhythm into the mix, drums
adding heft to Cartwright's 12-string flourishes, and even going so
far as to introduce a pretty funky groove to final duo 'Gathered and
Unkempt' and 'Good Honest Thievery.' While Cartwright's music has
always flirted between atmospheric minimalism and frantic,
multi-instrumental frenzy, the layered, rhythmic approach applied
here strikes a perfect balance between scarcity and bombast which
gives the album a more dynamic feel as a whole. And while it's not a
term that really applies to the kind of music Seabuckthorn makes, The
Silence Woke Me has more 'hooks' than anything he has done in
years. Many of the songs elegantly shimmy in from silence and build
tantra-like before reaching a central pattern of notes around which
the guitar meanders – 'As Fire Moves', 'The Cool of the Coming
Dark' and the closing track all find repetitions which give the songs
a heated, hypnotic feel. The cymbal washes and relentless stomp of
'It Swept Across the Open' creep up on you before you realise you're
in the centre of a storm of arpeggiating guitars and reverb-drenched
notes that sound like whale song. The 12-string acoustic is the
binding force that patches together not only all the songs of the
album, but also elements like drums and shruti box – a kind of
droning, Indian harmonium, played by sometime-collaborator Duncan
Scott.
Where fellow Oxford-based instrumental
prodigy Jerome 'Message to Bears' Alexander's pastoral chamber folk
evokes a sense of child-like nostalgia, Cartwright is like Jerome's
feral brother, raised in the forest by wolves. His music, while
equally evocative, feels exotic and otherwordly; it invites you in
with it's warm, campfire tones but leads you on a journey through
treacherous, bizarre landscapes, all under the cover of darkness with
only fire and moonlight illuminating you on your way.
[Originally published in Nightshift Magazine, issue 207, October 2012]
No comments:
Post a Comment