After a short intro the first tones of Snow Roads, the new full-length album by Ian Hawgood directly sets the overall mood: sad, melancholic music.
With light sounds the goal of this album seems to be set as an exploration of feelings such as stillness, isolation and loneliness.
For example, long extended notes deliver melancholic feelings in the piece One Day Winter. For diversity not the strongest piece ever, but considering emotion it wins a lot. Also in the details it finds stronger points with subtle background glitches filling up the emptiness.
When we move on to the next pieces we notice a distinct place for silence in the music. Not that the music has much gaps or goes to complete silence as Francisco Lopez would do. No, we find the silence in a sparse use of field recordings, soft tinkling of bells and soft treatments of a piano. These sound fill up the space that is could be considered the silence.
Not unlike the music of Celer a cinematic scenery is created. Slow pulsing drones with subtle environmental recordings are ingredients for all pieces.
From the recordings the music gets a organic touch, as if you are walking in the forest early in the morning of a lovely day in fall.
None of the pieces on Snow Roads show distinct development, rather you'll find the interesting part in the subtle changes on a microlevel.
This lack of development isn't really a problem in most of the pieces, though those pieces which show a distinct progression do stand out as recognizable, for example Specks then flakes.
Overall Snow Roads is a pleasant album, but with a little more attention to change a wider audience, that is less patient, could be reached also. |
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