Like Kisses Of Thread: Letters
October Man

Like previous October Man recordings, the impressive quality of Like Kisses Of Thread's Letters is belied by its miniscule run (twenty-five CDR copies in this case). Without question, more listeners should hear the six pieces comprising James McDermid's hour-long collection of lush electronic soundscaping. Five of the pieces are nine minutes or longer, enabling listeners ample opportunity to immerse themselves into his flowing ambient masses of pianos and glistening electronics.

A bass drum pulse helps animate the dense synthetic patterns and string instruments that swirl throughout the thirteen-minute “Hiraeth.” Escalating that approach to a slightly more epic and locomotive pitch, “… And Sadness Preyed On Her Face” rolls along like an unstoppable colossus while the eighteen-minutes “Summer of the Seventeenth Fall” has ample time to work its low-level dreamscape into position. Perhaps the most sonically ear-catching piece is “A Kewpie-Doll-Like Waltz” which emerges from an introductory cloud of timepiece whirr and click to become a mallet-instrument-driven field of sparkle before ceding the front-line to rambunctious percussive rumble. A carefully-crafted blend of drones, ambient, and minimalism, Letters hopefully will be heard by a considerably larger audience than its tiny run might suggest is possible.

August 2008