Articles
2011 Artists' Picks
Spotlight 5
Albums
1982
Marvin Ayres
Big Quarters
Birds Of Passage
Brunborg / Huke
bvdub
Charlatan
City of Satellites
Cokiyu
CYNE
Dakota Suite / Sirjacq
Tomoyoshi Date
Dday One
Vladislav Delay
Ensemble Economique
Esperanza
Frost & Bjarnason
Integral
Lullatone
Mario & Vidis
Dean McPhee
Mint Julep
Muhr
James Murray
Muta
Nicholas: Nu Groove
pacificUV
Papir
Andrew Pekler
Pimmon
Simon Scott
Quentin Sirjacq
Stormloop
Swod
szilárd
Tapage
Carl Taylor
Willamette
Boo Williams
Reissue
Pink Floyd
Compilations / Mixes
Marcel Dettmann
Fabriksampler V4
Inertia: Resisting Routine
Tech My House 5
Visionquest
EPs
0311
A Sun-Amissa
Jacksonville
Arev Konn
Neon Cloud
Phasen
Photonz
Rivers Home
James Murray:
Floods
Slowcraft Records
James Murray keeps a rather low profile, which means that his music undeservedly receives less attention and appreciation than it otherwise might. Arriving as it does three years after Where Edges Meet (Ultimae Records), Floods, the second solo album by the London-based composer and multi-instrumentalist, is an accomplished collection of pastoral, guitar-based electro-acoustic music that, dedicated to “the waters,” wears its heart on its sleeve in more ways than one. Issued on his own Slowcraft Records imprint, the recording takes its inspiration from the flood plain where Murray grew up and where twin rivers, their levels increased by rainfall from nearby Welsh mountains, rise each winter and eventually break their banks, resulting in flooded pastures and hedgerows. Consequently, the album material is designed to acknowledge in equal measure the waters' destructive potential but also its regenerative power.
Having said that, Floods concentrates less on violent catastrophe and more on a natural, cyclical event that's become an indelible part of Murray's memory and one looked back upon with affection. As a result, the album's seven settings are largely soothing and meditative, though the title track is comparatively more brooding than the others. A wistful and nostalgic mood permeates the becalmed opening piece “First Falls,” after which the material blossoms more fully during “Greenlands” when a dark undercurrent is illuminated by the radiant sparkle of ruminative keyboard melodies. The mood obviously darkens during the later “Greenlands Lament” and deepens into an even more sombre lamentation during the closing “Hold Your Breath.”
The material comfortably situates itself within the ambient soundscaping tradition associated with labels such as Hibernate, Home Normal, and Under The Spire, and, like some of those labels' artists, Murray meticulously builds his pieces into richly detailed and ponderous sound-paintings filled with acoustic guitars, keyboards, electronic textures, and field recordings. Given the subject matter, it hardly surprises that field recordings form part of the sound palette. Even so, Murray uses them judiciously to augment the musical material, not compete with or dominate it. Sounds of the natural outdoors emerge as part of the fabric of a given piece, often doing so almost subliminally. Murray founded Slowcraft Records in order to present “unhurried artworks of intensity, honesty, and depth,” and Floods certainly makes good on that promise.
January 2012