Clara Engel & Bradley Sean Alexander: Ghost Bird
Polar Seas Recordings

Jeannine Schulz: Luminous
Polar Seas Recordings

Ten digital recordings are shown at the Bandcamp site of ambient artist Jeannine Schulz, the earliest an EP issued in early 2020 and the latest (as of this writing) a six-track set released a month ago. Translation: Schulz is prolific. Whereas they are all self-released, her Luminous full-length (not part of that Bandcamp display) is available in digital and physical formats from Toronto-based Polar Seas Recordings. Little bio-related info's available, other than that Schulz calls Hamburg, Germany home, so the music'll have to do the talking.

First off, the album title's well-chosen. Nine nuanced evocations appear on the release, each one carefully crafted and designed to encourage a particular response in the listener. Some track titles seem provisional (“III”), while others refer specifically to nature-based phenomena (“Tides”), among other things. However accurate or inaccurate, the impression forms that titles for Schulz are of significantly less importance than the scene-paintings to which they're affixed. No details about gear or instruments appear on the sleeve, the omission again suggesting that the focus should be on one thing only.

Schulz demonstrates a well-calibrated sensitivity to mood in the opening “River.” Intoning against a hazy flow of muffled clicks and washes, subdued electric guitar shadings tinge the material with atmospheric colour, the material's overall tone forlorn. Guitar surfaces again in “Blue,” where the combination of liquidy six-string phrasings and hazy textures lends the piece an aquatic quality. Throughout the recording, guitar fragments intermingle with ambient elements to create alluring dreamscapes the listener's more than willing to enter into.

Eight of the pieces establish their character immediately and make their cases with dispatch. The exception's “Zazen,” a meditation that flickers suggestively for nine daze-inducing minutes, its lulling quality heightened by the addition of lilting guitar at the halfway mark. As solid as the album is in general, “Zazen” stands out as its peak moment. Atmosphere is paramount here, but as important is sound design, and listeners with an abiding affection for artists such as Chihei Hatakeyama and Taylor Deupree should find much to like about Schulz's music too.

Released concurrently with Luminous is Ghost Bird, the first full-length collaboration by Clara Engel and Bradley Sean Alexander Deschamps. Both of these Toronto-based artists have appeared on Polar Seas before, Engel under her given name and Deschamps (the label's curator) as anthéne and with Mike Abercrombie as North Atlantic Drift. A natural product of Engel's and Deschamps' sensibilities, the recording is strongly atmospheric, but it's not ambient, at least not in the sense that an anthéne release would be. The instrumentation deployed accentuates the non-electronic character of the material, with Engel credited with cigar box guitar, melodica, gusli, voice, and harmonica and her partner electric guitar and field recordings. Leaning in an acoustic folk direction, the ten pieces are very much a reflection of the artistic leanings of its creators.

Each is song-length—no twenty-minute epics here—and floods the space with guitar picking, willowy textures, and an occasional vocal. Aromatic and evocative, the material conjures imagery of desolate landscapes, the only sign of life a lonely individual or two drifting through. Characteristic of the duo's sound is “Presence” for the way it blends reverberant electric guitar shadings and a wordless murmur. The wistful melancholy of “Daguerreotype” is less depressing than heartwarming in the way it calls to mind the moment faded photographs jar the memory with the faces of long-dead relatives and friends. Nostalgic imagery of a different kind, on the other hand, is suggested by “Wing” when field recordings of a clattering train combine with bent guitar notes.

April 2021