Music or musings? That is the question asked on these two releases that mix instruments with atmosphere.
The unorthodox team of harp (Ellen Gibling), cello (India Gailey), guitar and “effects” (Ross Burns) and various reeds (Andrew MacKelvie) create a wide variety of atmospheres on this intuitive collection of improvisations. The reeds go deep into subtones on the tentative “Boiling Off, Collecting Vapours” and around some dainty pluckings on “Most/Rust”. Strings that go “boing” in the night are heard on “Pine Bottle Skylight” and a Morse Code message is delivered on “Patient Sprout”. Gurgles, sounds of sleeping sinuses and tunings of strings dominate “Stalkers”, “Desertification” and “Light Through The Rubble” with swirling reeds closing things up on “In Amber”. Don’t ask for a transcription!
Colin Fisher plays guitar, sax and electronics on this collection of seven originals. The sounds are a collection of sound scapes, sometimes folksy as with the guitar on “Coalescence”, spacey during the “Salient Charm” and “Unchanging Awareness” or simply forming ambient atmospheres as o “Double Image” and “Zero Experience”. Gasping sax sounds are heard on “Sanctum”, with electronics that would make Brian Eno proud evident throughout. Another Green invisible world?