Articles
2009 Artists' Picks
Lymbyc Systym
Albums
Cory Allen
aus
The Bird Ensemble
Canaille
Catlin & Machinefabriek
Greg Davis
Loren Dent
Dirac
Drafted By Minotaurs
Flica
Sarah Goldfarb & JHK
Gown
John Hollenbeck
Viviane Houle
I/DEX
Akira Kosemura
Andrew McKenna Lee
Le Lendemain
LRAD
Lymbyc Systym
Melorman
Muskox
The Mercury Program
Nikasaya
Northerner
nörz
Noveller / Aidan Baker
Redshape
Marina Rosenfeld
Stripmall Architecture
Sturqen
Wes Willenbring
The Tony Wilson Sextet
Julia Wolfe
Peter Wright
Zelienople
Compilations / Mixes
Blackoperator
Glimpse Four:Twenty 03
Kod.eX
Portland Stories
EPs
Molnbär Av John
Tommi Bass & B.B.S.C.
Julian Beau
Colours-Volume 5
Dalot
Echologist
Simon James French
Geiom & Shortstuff
General Elektriks
Geskia
Ernest Gonzales
Gradient
Jacksonville
Joker
Ann Laplantine
Loko
Machinefabriek
Stefano Pilia
Damian Valles
Wes Willenbring:
Close, But Not Too Close
Hidden Shoal
San Francisco-based ambient artisan Wes Willenbring follows his well-crafted 2007 effort Somewhere Someone Else with thenatural companion recording Close, But Not Too Close. Track titles such as “The Anti-Social Aesthetic” and “I'm Looking Forward to Your Funeral” suggest his music might be so hermetic it's designed to ward off listeners' advances, but in fact Willenbring leaves the door open just enough to allow visitors in to share his world. His is an unassuming and rather muted style; he's not the kind of composer who bludgeons the listener with abrasive extremes but rather lures him/her in with the seductive understatement of fully-rounded and plaintive meditations.
Given the schadenfreude-themed choice of title for the opening piece, “I'm Looking Forward to Your Funeral,” no one at least can accuse Willenbring of lacking a sense of humour, if a rather wry and perverse one. The organ-and-piano-based setting itself is hardly a joke, however, but rather a fine exemplar of his luscious and introspective style. In “Oh, Most,” sheets of icy guitar-generated sound spread across blurry piano flourishes and bass meanderings.The appropriately-titled “My Ghostly Fingers” augments haunting and dramatic piano figures with Mellotron-generated flute quiverings. The organ swells coursing through the closing “The Anti-Social Aesthetic” identify it as a mirror version to the opening piece. Though modest in length at thirty-eight minutes, the album includes no shortage of crepuscular drones and brooding evocations. Like aural transcriptions of a comatose-like state, Willenbring's carefully-considered set-pieces for piano, guitar, and mellotron reverberate in one's consciousness long after they're gone.January 2010