With Ambient music the overriding tendency of inferior artists to lapse into lazy washes of faux strings and other synthetic clichés often devalues the efforts of the few practitioners who can genuinely conjure up new ideas and textures. The distinct line between the sound of pioneering Ambient and the bland outpourings of New Age twaddle is often blurred, particularly by the overtly life-styled ‘Café Del Mar’ type releases that amount to little more than a collection of slowed down trance music or unimaginative remixes of club fodder with their drum and bass sections either muted or switched off.
Luckily there are acts like Scott Sinfield’s PORTAL who seem more interested in revisiting the open ended ideas of past masters as well as pushing on into frontiers of their own making. ‘Waves & Echoes’ is their sixth long-player and it offers as diverse a selection of music within their chosen oeuvre as you would hope for from equivalent acts operating in their own equally distinctive popular genres. Such diversity though comes at a price with not all the tracks hitting their mark but the majority unequivocally reach their chosen states of mind and entrance with their deft and sometimes magical touch.
After a brief intro the three lead tracks of ‘Trace’, ‘Quartet’ and the title track succeed in lulling you into a calm reverie as they collectively hint at the influences of The Cocteau Twins, Eno, Tangerine Dream, This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance whilst still retaining a sense of individuality and offering a compelling sound for the here and now. The simple unmannered vocals of Rachel Hughes (more folk than ethereal) impart a longing and a yearning that matches the subdued tones of the music but also help the listener to enter Sinfield’s sound world. On ‘Endgame’ the subdued mood is maintained but the introduction of the scratching glitch over the track hints at changes to come.
|
The brief pause of ‘Veil’ gives way to the first ‘experimental’ track, ‘Consumed’, which opens like one of those brief but inspired instrumental tracks from the trio of This Mortal Coil albums but soon deconstructs itself into a cracked and scratching drone reminiscent of water dripping rapidly from a tap into a stainless steel sink. If that sounds unattractive then you are not wrong so thankfully the Eno/Lanois/ ‘Apollo’ piano ambience of ‘Resolution’ relieves the tension. More successful is the experimentation of ‘Sometimes’ that comes across as a Warp records/Aphex Twin remix of an outtake from The Cocteau Twins classic ‘Treasure’ or even the earlier ‘Garland’. The fuzzy distorted but warm noise of ‘Bloodline’ is another success with the crystal clear vocals of Rachel Hughes providing a beautiful contrast to the roughened sonic backdrop. The last track ‘Light At The Centre’ is – if such things are possible – the most mainstream of all the tracks which builds and grows with a ‘Rock’ structure that recalls those old shoegazer stalwarts, Slowdive.
‘Waves & Echoes’ ultimately works because despite all the different moods evoked and the unevenness that that variation dispels the album retains a simple and inclusive charm that prevents the music from disappearing into itself; PORTAL always affording the listener a way in to the sounds they create by ensuring that their melodies are never wholly lost to the experimentation within.
|
