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artist.....: Eskmo
album......: Sol
year.......: 2015
label......: Apollo
AMB1503CDP
source.....: CD-R
moodswing..: Electronic
releasesize: 62.86 MB
tracks.....: 10
length.....: 36:54
encoder....: VBR LAME 3.98.4 -v0
quality....: avg. 234kbps
scenealized: 04.21.2015
As long as it took for Brendan
Angelides to find a scene to work in,
it's taken nearly as long for him to
sound comfortable in it. With a
discography stretching back to the late
'90s and a string of high-profile
stopovers on some of the key
destinations for abstract bass musicù
Planet Mu, Ninja Tune, WarpùEskmo's
career itself has been more enduring
than any individual record he's put
out. As someone who sounds more at ease
testing his ideas than sticking with
and building off a formula, he hasn't
had the chance to define himself with a
signature style.
Not that he hasn't had some highlights:
2003's Ascension and its glitched-up
d'n'b, the sun-drenched prog-dubstep of
'09 single "Hypercolor", and his oddly
idyllic take on electro-house on 2012's
Language made a career of constant
digressions worth following. He may
have tripped over his own ambitions a
couple times, but at least something
like 2010's self-titled exercise in
jumbled bass pile-ups couldn't be
called complacentùor definitive, for
that matter. With his more recent work
paring back the gloss and bloat of
big-statement Eskmo, a turn to more
open-spaced, modern-classical
influenced compositions feels like a
solid decision.
Angelides' ear for nuanced ambience
comes to the forefront on SOL, an album
inspired by the sun and his work with
the Los Angeles composer collective
Echo Society. Slow builds and minimal
beats emerge into warm presences, even
if the droning compositions do more to
insinuate moods than induce them.
Spending enough time with the opening
one-two of the Burial-interlude-style
"SpVce" and the slow-motion monolith of
"Combustion" will do a lot to distract
from the actual dearth of kicks and
snares on this record. The midpoint
peak, an eleven-minute stretch
incorporating the tracks "Sol" and "The
Light of One Thousand Furnaces", lets
the drones and bass thrums sink in
until they sound like chamber strings,
building to the one big moment of
intense, cathartic percussion on the
record.
SOL has less gravity when it steers
away from its majestic solar themes and
tries to put its abstract sensations
into words. Eskmo's vocals, while
delicate, still feel intrusive. The
mannered, show-offy crooning about
"morning mist and firefly dust" over
"Blue and Grey" and the vague, Mattel-
Peter Gabriel cheapness of "Mind of
War" break the mood, putting the focus
more on an (not especially engaging)
individual voice than the feeling of
bigger-than-all-of-us cosmic heat the
record's best moments invoke. At least
it's just one of dozens of voices he's
worked with over the yearsùhe'll find
plenty more before it's all said and
done.
psst, more info at apollorecordings.tumblr.com
01 Spvce 02:12
02 Combustion 03:42
03 Blue And Grey 03:47
04 Mind Of War 03:12
05 Tamara 02:20
06 SOL 04:57
07 The Light Of One Thousand Furnaces 05:57
08 Feed Fire 03:01
09 The Sun Is A Drum 03:48
10 Can't Taste 03:58