textura

Albums
Aardvarck
Vieo Abiungo
Celer
Concern
Enrico Coniglio
Copy
Corrugated Tunnel
Dalot
Darkstar
Gareth Dickson
Directorsound
Dryft
Eskmo
Lugano Fell
Benjamin Finger
Fond of Tigers
Gel-Sol
Giardini di Mirò
Gibson & Rose
Gareth Hardwick
Haruki
Marc Houle
I'm Not A Gun
Rafael Anton Irisarri
Library Tapes
Markus Mehr
Minamo and English
Yann Novak
okamotonoriaki
M. Ostermeier
Morgan Packard
Petrolio
Benoit Pioulard
Hein Schoer
Seaworthy and Rösner
Sketches For Albinos
Slow Dancing Society
Solo Andata
System
Antonio Trinchera
Walkner.Moestl
Zazie V. E. Anderen Stern

Compilations / Mixes
Bacterium
Lost Tribe Sound: One
Ninja Tune XX

EPs
Aufgang
Bogdan
Ibex
Jacksonville
Komet
Minus
Morning Factory
Novak + Manning
rANdOMoiDz / NoseTek
Sozonov
SQware
:take

Slow Dancing Society: Under the Sodium Lights
Hidden Shoal

Drew Sullivan returns with another serving of his trademark Slow Dancing Society sound on his fourth release Under The Sodium Lights. Not a whole lot has changed in the Slow Dancing Society universe since the Washington based producer's last opus Priest Lake Circa '88 though that won't be any cause for concern for those already partial to Sullivan's intoxicating ambient serenades. If anything, the new release feels like all of the project's strengths have been concentrated into a single statement, and hazy washes, hushed voices, and desert guitars once again exert their hypnotic pull upon the entranced listener.

Sullivan distinguishes his Slow Dancing Society sound by making electric guitar the lead voice on many of the seven tracks, and what personalizes the sound even more is that the guitar is often presented as a fluid twang that merges seamlessly with the ambient flow around it; consider, for example, the manner by which plaintive guitar melodies share the spotlight with sheets of swelling synthetic sound during “By Your Side.” While the settings are, programmatically speaking, abstract, these beatless, time-suspending reveries resonate with emotion. A sense of longing and wistfulness characterizes the material, and song titles such as “A Year of Yesterdays” and “...And to the Dust We Shall Return” reinforce the music's elegiac tone.

The album's intimate mood establishes itself immediately when reverberant swirls of guitar figures, shimmering organ chords, and a murmured voice's recited text gradually crystallize into the dreamscape “The Songs in Your Eyes.” The addition of a female's breathy whisper to “Love is on the Way” renders it all the more seductive, but Under The Sodium Lights ' most masterful piece has to be “...And to the Dust We Shall Return,” which is veritably symphonic in the way its guitar and synth tones intone with such quietly rapturous supplication, and the slowly descending bass pattern that gently anchors the track is a thing of beauty all by itself. Calling “...And to the Dust We Shall Return” heavenly isn't as hyperbolic as it might seem, and the album's other tracks aren't far behind on that count either.

October 2010