textura

Albums
1982
Amute
Answer Code Request
Asuna
Marvin Ayres
Barreca | Leimer
Building Instrument
Taylor Deupree
Dose
David Douglas
Kyle Bobby Dunn
Dusted Lux
Ensemble Economique
The Eye Of Time
Benjamin Finger
M. Geddes Gengras
gnarwhallaby
Hatakeyama & Hakobune
Carl Hultgren
Imaginary Softwoods
Isnaj Dui
Kidkanevil
David Lang
Linear Bells
Mokhov
Moskus
Phasen
JC Sanford
Günter Schlienz
Seelig & Metcalf
Seelig & Nerell
Slpwlkr
Sons Of Magdalene
Håkon Stene
Robert Scott Thompson
Throwing Snow
V/Vm
Julia Wolfe
Xumla
Girma Yifrashewa
Jeppe Zeeberg

Compilations / Mixes
5 Years of No. 19 Music
Margeir

EPs / Singles
Blind EP2
Children Of The Stones
Dylan C
Eveson
Northcape
Katsunori Sawa

Robert Scott Thompson: Arcana
Relaxed Machinery

Electro-acoustic composer Robert Scott Thompson has built up an impressive discography over the years, which might make it difficult for someone coming to his music for the first time to know where to begin. As it turns out, his latest collection, Arcana, would seem to be as good a point of entry as any for a couple of reasons (even if Thompson himself cites The Silent Shore, Frontier, and At the Still Point of the Turning World as Arcana's kin): its breadth, for one, given that its nine pieces cover many of the stylistic bases touched upon in his previous recordings; and quite simply its quality, as the material is at the same high level in terms of compositional writing and sound design as his best work.

Issued on John Koch-Northrup's Relaxed Machinery imprint (which Koch-Northrup co-runs with Steve Brand and Geoff Small) rather than Thompson's own Aucourant Records label, Arcana is, according to its creator, an example of “classical ambient,” a style of long standing that emphasizes languor, nuance, and subtlety over epic, beat-driven structures in its arrangements of synthesized and acoustic—prepared piano among them—elements. But while percussion might play a lesser role on the seventy-minute set, it's not wholly absent as Stuart Gerber is credited with contributing percussion samples and performances to the album.

Regardless of the ambient character of the material, Arcana's tracks, each one a distinct world from the others, overflow at every moment with detail and incident. The seeming pluck of a string instrument (though it may well be a keyboard) drifts across the oceanic expanses of the shimmering title track, for example, whereas cowbells tinkle o'ertop a base of synth washes and cavernous rumbles within “Night Has a Thousand Eyes.” During “Liminal Worlds,” wordless choral voices intone amidst sparse Rhodes patterns and echo-laden synthetic flourishes, while an Asian character seeps into the material during “Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,” arguably the album's most sonically rich soundscape.

Many a setting is peaceful, but there are some, such as “Imagination is Memory,” that suggest geological force of towering strength and magnitude, and the piano-heavy exploration “Unwoven” is similarly unafraid to wade into dissonant waters. In Thompson's ponderous scene-paintings, icy sheets of sound stretch themselves across immense, flat surfaces. Don't be thrown off by the ambient label associated with his music: listening to these mist-cloaked electronic landscapes proves to be a compelling and rewarding experience.

July 2014