Ultramarine - Signals Into Space - Les Disques du Crepuscule - January 5th 2019
Recorded over a three-year period, Signals Into Space is the Essex electronica duo's seventh album and their first since 2013's luxuriant and jazzy This Time Last Year. For SIS, Ultramarine continue a similar theme of hazy synthesesia and fuggy beats, this time with songs co-written with Americana roots songwriter Anna Domino, a former Crepsucule labelmate whose gently understated vocals provide something of a smokey eccentric overtone, recalling Laurie Anderson and, well, Anna Domino herself.
This entire album is a heady and engaging fusion of improvised jams, ad-hoc poetics and retro synths, all vying for attention without being invasive and in keeping with the pair's earlier works such as the debut Folk and the later A User's Guide - subtle pulsating rhythms and triggers that conjure images of Messrs Sylvian, Isham, Nelson and Sakamoto gazing out across a sun-drenched estuary with the intent of recording together.
Domino's vocals lend something of a mystical air to stand-outs Spark From Flint to Clay and Arithmetic, while Hammond and Cooper explore natural sonic surroundings on Du Sud and Equatorial Calms, the equal of pretty much anything that appeared on ECM in the '80s. Additional players Iain Ballamy (sax) and vibesman Ric Elsworth lend experienced weight to proceedings across the entire album while Ultramarine themselves serenly weave musical signatures together in a similar manner to Autechre, Luke Vibert or Art Lande. Dull, it ain't.
Supremely arranged and beautifully assembled with Studio Heretic artwork, Signals Into Space is a promising start to this potentially tricky and uncertain new year. Order early enough and you'll garner a 35 minute bonus CD in the shape of Meditations, a triumphant Possible Worlds-style addendum to the twosome's most accessible, cohesive and hypnotic work since 1993's United Kingdoms.
UPDATE: Meditations has now been issued as a vinyl album.
8/10
This entire album is a heady and engaging fusion of improvised jams, ad-hoc poetics and retro synths, all vying for attention without being invasive and in keeping with the pair's earlier works such as the debut Folk and the later A User's Guide - subtle pulsating rhythms and triggers that conjure images of Messrs Sylvian, Isham, Nelson and Sakamoto gazing out across a sun-drenched estuary with the intent of recording together.Domino's vocals lend something of a mystical air to stand-outs Spark From Flint to Clay and Arithmetic, while Hammond and Cooper explore natural sonic surroundings on Du Sud and Equatorial Calms, the equal of pretty much anything that appeared on ECM in the '80s. Additional players Iain Ballamy (sax) and vibesman Ric Elsworth lend experienced weight to proceedings across the entire album while Ultramarine themselves serenly weave musical signatures together in a similar manner to Autechre, Luke Vibert or Art Lande. Dull, it ain't.
Supremely arranged and beautifully assembled with Studio Heretic artwork, Signals Into Space is a promising start to this potentially tricky and uncertain new year. Order early enough and you'll garner a 35 minute bonus CD in the shape of Meditations, a triumphant Possible Worlds-style addendum to the twosome's most accessible, cohesive and hypnotic work since 1993's United Kingdoms.
UPDATE: Meditations has now been issued as a vinyl album.
8/10