Pieter Nooten - Stem - Rocket Girl - CD/LP/DD
Despite a solo headline billing on the sleeve, Stem is all but a collaborative effort between former Xymox frontman and sound creator Steven Tayler, whose previous work includes mixing and engineering with Kate Bush, Howard Jones, The Fixx, Peter Gabriel and many others. Both Nooten and Tayler clearly know their way around technology with the former already well versed in creating melodic and sonic soundscapes that have occasionally recalled the likes of the late Johann Johannsson, John Foxx, Roger Eno and Lubomyr Melnyk. Tayler's lineage is unquestionable.
For Stem, the pair expand on 2013's double CD set Haven as well as his benchmark collaboration with ambient master Michael Brook, Sleeps With The Fishes. Utilising machines, infrequent pianos and treated guitars, as well as a swathe of strings, Nooten's fourth album is an absorbing listen that rarely alters its pace or mood because it doesn't need to - reflective and expressive, after ten minutes in its company you'll soon realise you probably needed some light relief without knowing it. Begging for a documentary or drama series to soundtrack - you know the sort of thing, a traditional and isolated community with dark secrets, living on a remote Scottish or Nordic island set against a backdrop of frozen lakes, roaming wild deer and snow-topped mountains - Stem encourages the use of your imagination without actually providing a lyric.
Highlights are many. The middle of the album includes some of the more memorable passages such as the desolate Freefall and the cyclical Variation in F# Minor, while Epicural wouldn't sound out of place with The Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan crooning sweetly over the top of it. Stem is virtually beatless save for a little synthetic percussion on Vari-Slowed and the closing epic I Felt. If anything, the album might have benefitted from a sliver of Nooten's vocals to vary the palette but this is a mere quibble.
As a complete antithesis to today's ridiculously frenetic pace and turbulent state of affairs, Stem hits the mark.
8/10
For Stem, the pair expand on 2013's double CD set Haven as well as his benchmark collaboration with ambient master Michael Brook, Sleeps With The Fishes. Utilising machines, infrequent pianos and treated guitars, as well as a swathe of strings, Nooten's fourth album is an absorbing listen that rarely alters its pace or mood because it doesn't need to - reflective and expressive, after ten minutes in its company you'll soon realise you probably needed some light relief without knowing it. Begging for a documentary or drama series to soundtrack - you know the sort of thing, a traditional and isolated community with dark secrets, living on a remote Scottish or Nordic island set against a backdrop of frozen lakes, roaming wild deer and snow-topped mountains - Stem encourages the use of your imagination without actually providing a lyric.
Highlights are many. The middle of the album includes some of the more memorable passages such as the desolate Freefall and the cyclical Variation in F# Minor, while Epicural wouldn't sound out of place with The Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan crooning sweetly over the top of it. Stem is virtually beatless save for a little synthetic percussion on Vari-Slowed and the closing epic I Felt. If anything, the album might have benefitted from a sliver of Nooten's vocals to vary the palette but this is a mere quibble.
As a complete antithesis to today's ridiculously frenetic pace and turbulent state of affairs, Stem hits the mark.
8/10