EP Review: Lights & Motion – Bloom

Lights & Motion began in the dark recesses and buried corners of insomnia. Without much sun to speak of in the Scandinavian winters of Sweden, Christoffer Franzen took to sequestering himself in a studio to help battle his condition. I’ve suffered from small bouts of insomnolence as well in my life. It is difficult to find a more lonely and helpless feeling. Thankfully, Christoffer was in great company. Through his project, which began in 2012, Lights & Motion has at once been an escape and a release not only for him but for those lucky enough to listen to his music. Franzen has an incredible capacity to write truly inspiriting and somber music. The most incredible part is that it seems to come so easily for him. It may sound like I’m gushing here but with this latest five song EP, entitled Bloom, Lights & Motion is marking its second release and Franzen’s third in just a little over a year. In January of this year Lights & Motion released the spiritual Dear Avalanche while in October he wrote the score for an imaginary movie called Phenomenon under his own name.

I’ve written in length on the influence one’s surroundings have on creativity. Being able to stand at the edges of town with your arms spread out wide and your head tilted back as you gaze at a million points of burning light twinkling in an endless expanse has to play some role in your creative process. The mind behind Lights & Motion admits that the surrounding panorama and dark winters have had a strong influence on everything he’s done…even if he didn’t know it at the time. The seemingly eternal winter brings with it an urge to create. Through this creation it’s as if Lights & Motion set out to will the changing of seasons.

With Bloom, Lights & Motion comes out of hibernation with hopeful eyes ever set on the promise of Spring’s clement touch. It’s about rejuvenation and being born again. It’s about bursting from the sodden, stark loam of winter to blossom anew. I can’t help but think the song Lion wasn’t so named because of the old adage that ‘spring comes in like a lion’. You can hear a sort of revival present in each of the album’s five songs. Light, airy strings swirl around like a soft, vernal breeze accompanied always by glimmering piano or guitar that tiptoe through the songs as if through a puddle after a spring rain. With each lullaby on Bloom you can almost hear the sleepy staccato of rain dreamily pitter-pattering the tin roof of the shed in your backyard. Franzen states that Bloom, like a lot of his music, was written during the darkest months when he’s longing for the changing of seasons. This longing is the catalyst that enables him to write music with a lighter feel, even while the sky outside is a never-ending blanket of grey. Bloom encapsulate perfectly that longing. Or as Franzen puts it ‘a hopeful melancholy’.

My only gripe with this album is that I want more. From the opening piano chord of the first track ‘Overture’ to the final chord of the last track ‘Lion’, Lights & Motion has created something here that truly transcends sensibility. Many of the tracks are full of lilting phrases that get your heart pumping new, enlivened blood, but there are moments when the weather changes. Lights & Motion won’t flip the script on you with the kind of abrupt crescendo we all know and love/hate with instrumental music. Instead, the tonal aura changes. Franzen relates that the piano and string textures ‘sound very blue-ish in color and tone’ on his newest mini album. This blue-ish tone portrays the quiet battle between a ceaseless winter and the ushering in of the new blessedness of promise.

Lights & Motion is nothing if not consistent. Every release is consistently beautiful. Consistently gut-wrenching. Consistently full of melancholic hopefulness. Franzen just gets it. On the micro-level he’s growing as an artist by experimenting with sounds and textures. You have to admire how unfailing his creativity is with release after release. The guy is pumping out music at an alarming pace and there are no signs of any kind of artistic lull. It’s difficult enough to try and be consistently creative with short gaps between albums, but Lights & Motion finds a way to do it with a faithfulness to his artistic conviction that I adore. At this point, my only advice to Lights & Motion is that if the landscapes of Sweden have as much influence over your writing as you claim – never move.”

Lights & Motion links:

Website: http://www.lightsandmotion.com/

Bandcamp: http://www.deepelm.com/lightsandmotion/

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/lightsandmotion

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lightsandmotion

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lightsandmotion/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightsandmotion/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LightsandMotion

Album Review: Slowrun – Passage

I want to say the year was 2003.

It was an unusually hot October morning hovering around 2AM. Stepping out onto my back porch to have a smoke, I peered up into the sky. At first I wasn’t quite sure at what I was looking. I can admit to you now that I was actually a little nervous. It looked completely alien. Unnatural. Running down the driveway to get a better view, I was both filled with elation and trepidation.

I stood in the middle of the street and shot my eyes skyward once again. Before me were beautifully swirling patterns floating listlessly in the dark. Bright reds and purples suspended impossibly, undulating like airborne waves on an alien planet. I would learn days later that the sun had experienced a large coronal mass ejection, throwing it’s plasma towards Earth. I had witnessed an aurora borealis. And it changed me utterly.

Finnish post-rock band Slowrun knows a thing or two about auroras. Roiling swells of so many colors, rippling like whitecaps soft enough to sail upon. The area of Lapland can actually get immigrants moving to the area in search of the mystical Northern Lights. To live in an expanse so blessed to be able to experience something so magical can make one envious. In 2003 when I accidentally spied my own borealis (and only due to a once in a lifetime solar storm) it changed my entire perspective on life and the universe. It shook something loose within me. I couldn’t shake the experience. I still can’t.

I bring this up because there are moments in all of our lives where something gets rattled loose; the veil is lifted from our eyes and we begin to see things more clearly. Sometimes it is one big momentous experience. Others it’s a series of small earthquakes over time. Many times it’s a minor, mundane change in our headspace. Still others it’s a tumultuous life changing event. This happened to me in 2003.

It happened again in 2007.

I always enjoy hearing how people got introduced to the post-rock genre. I’m probably considered a later comer. I first became aware of the genre that would ultimately own almost ever fiber of my being purely on accident. A lot like how I witnessed the aurora borealis. I was watching the movie Friday Night Lights. I didn’t know who or what the background music was, but suddenly the story and dialogue were no longer important. I didn’t care. All I knew is that whatever or whoever was playing in the background, it moved something inside of me. I again felt something rattle loose. I wanted more. Again, I couldn’t shudder the feeling. It was full of hope and moroseness. Vindication and purpose. I would soon devour everything the genre had to offer and, 10 years later, I haven’t slowed down.

Slowrun’s 2-song EP “Passage” gives me the feeling of 2007 all over again. I almost instantly feel nostalgic and start to yearn for slower, easier days. I’m not the same person I was in 2007 and bands like Slowrun have a lot to do with that. They are able to capture the genre in a time when it was crawling through my veins and terraforming my soul. Slowrun doesn’t play overzealous chord progressions chock-full of filler. And they certainly aren’t in any hurry to get anywhere. They let their songs build in slow motion upon the reluctant breakers of an aurora. They build so impossibly slow into a ground swell that once the song breaks you feel swept up as into a storm. The heavier portions are well measured and few and far between, but never cliche.

A lot of fans of the genre have grown restless with the quiet-loud-quiet recipe of post-rock. I’ve stated in another review that I can understand their sentiment, but I can also admit that there’s plenty of room in the genus for bands that don’t necessarily feel the need to rewrite the book on instrumental rock. There’s something sentimental about Slowrun’s writing that I find a bit infectious. They aren’t going to score any points for pushing the limits of post-rock, but they don’t necessarily need to. The band has a clear and composed approach to song writing. Not every band needs to bring a thousand samples and a degree in noise shaping to the table in order to create a beautifully written tune. Slowrun is analytical in their approach. They’ve come to convey an idea and they refuse to muddy the waters. This is what I loved about post-rock when I first got in to the scene. Sure, sometimes it was a bit formulaic, but it was comfortable and safe.

Slowrun has another record entitled “Resonance” released in December of 2015 (listen to the track Introspection). It, too, is well worth a pick up and deserving of a review. With “Resonance” the band really shows off its chops. “Passage” is just that. A portal into a new chapter for the band. You can hear a sense of maturity growing in this latest 2-song release. It’s tranquil but troubled. It’s clear-sighted and contemplative. “Passage” is why I fell in love with post-rock in the first place a decade ago. If you need reminding of what it was about this genre that rattled something loose within you, starting a fire in your belly, you should (re)start with “Passage”.

Slowrun links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slowrun.sounds/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SlowrunSounds
Bandcamp: https://slowrun.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/slowrun

Album Review: Gregory Tan – Sky Threader’s Journey

It’s quickly clear that Gregory Tan usually writes soundtrack music when listening to his latest album, The Sky Threader’s Journey. While 2016’s Far and Away was an ambient/post-rock styled release, The Sky Threader’s Journey sounds more like a video game.

As you could expect from the album title, Tan tries to take the listener on a journey with his music. We watch as soldiers prep for a grand battle; take in the grandeur of the bustling courtyard in King Arthur’s Camelot; feel the air rush past as we fly through the sky, riding on giant eagles. Or at least those are some wild interpretations… To quote Tan: “each piece takes the listener on a thematic adventure of sorts.”

“As a composer, it is just my desire and dream to capture emotions and transform them into music,” Tan writes, “but I would also want for this music to serve a purpose that goes way beyond the celebration of an individual’s creativity.”

Electronic tones on this album give it a dated feel, like a polyphonic ringtone, which probably explains why I imagine computer games when I listen to it. Plus the drums feel tight and rigid, making me guess that they are also programmed. This is offset by more traditional instruments. The blend of orchestral instruments like violins juxtapose against the inorganic computerised tones.

Tan is a prolific musician, a composer by profession. I find it intriguing when people who write soundtrack music decide to compile some of their works for release as an album [examples include Brad Couture, Rhian Sheehan, Christoffer Franzen]. Why choose these particular songs? What message are you sharing? Is there a cohesive theme that sets these tracks apart from the many others you’ve written?

Regardless of his reasonings, Tan is clearly proud of his work. It is tight, intricate and detailed – certainly more fleshed out than his last EP. Simultaneously going classical and modern, Tan has created an epic listen.

Gregory Tan links:

Bandcamp: https://gregtanmusic.bandcamp.com/

Website: https://www.gregtanmusic.net/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gregtanmusic/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregtanmusic

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/gregtanmusic

Joseph James

TRACK(S) REVIEW: U137 – ADAM FOREVER/THE GREAT LEAP

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything; It is the essence of order and lends to all that is good, just, and beautiful. – Aristotle

There are as many ways to deal with pain or loss as there are stars in the sky. Music was handed down to us through the impossibility of timeless epochs by our ancestors. The importance of music throughout our history on this planet cannot be denied. Pre-history man used it as a means to tell stories, mourn the fallen or in ritualistic rites. Paleolithic humans would blow through bone flutes, clap their hands, bang rocks together, hum, whistle or roar. Music and rhythm is an indelible part of human evolution. We take it, as we take life, for granted. It is almost unfeasible to imagine our short time on Earth without it.

The post-rock and cinematic instrumental genres are difficult to explain. I’m often asked what it is and usually I’m bereft of any explanation. I can never quite define it. “Why do you insist on listening to music that seems to be so damn sad all the time?” is one question I’m often faced with. The answer is easy: catharsis. There was a study published in Frontiers in Psychology that posits that we tend to listen to sad music because it elicits positive emotions. Aristotle suggests that when we overwhelm ourselves with undesirable emotions the music acts as a tool of purgation. There is a gap between what we perceive as emotive in the song and what is actually felt. That gap is what is so difficult to explain.

Oftentimes, as listeners we rely on the musicians to provide us with ablution through their music. Sometimes we forget that the musicians themselves may be writing to deal with their own pain.

In 2013 Swedish post-rock duo U137 released their debut album Dreamer On The Run. According to record label Deep Elm the album has over 40+ million plays on Spotify alone. Dreamer On The Run was a gem of an album. Fronted by Oscar Gulbrandsen and Adam Tornblad of Moonlit Sailor fame, U137 writes texturally deep and spiritually honest songs that dive right into the heart. It’s the kind of music that plays at the edges of that emotive gap highlighted in the study above. On November 17th U137 will be releasing a two song “single” Adam Forever / The Great Leap. Sadly, the release will be bitter-sweet. U137 and Moonlit Sailor lost drummer Adam Tornblad in May of this year after a long struggle with substance abuse and depression. This is Oscar Gulbrandsen’s catharsis:

“Writing Adam Forever was very difficult but also provided me with some much needed therapy. The feeling and sound in this song is my love for Adam.”

left: Adam, right: Oscar, credit Kristoffer Midborn

Adam Forever is Oscar’s farewell tune to a man he’s known for over two decades. This is Oscar’s goodbye song and a way to show his appreciation for a man he obviously dearly loved.

Adam and Oscar began writing music together in their teens and would eventually start ethereal post-rock group Moonlit Sailor in Borås, Sweden. Borås is known to go weeks without sunlight. An important fact to note as you can hear the peaceful tranquility of night dot the landscape of their musical library. In Adam Forever you can hear the hope of a new day in its opening notes. It’s almost a lullaby in reverse. It’s a song that reminds you that no matter how bad things get you have to shake off the dark, greet the morning with a smile and know that you’re 13 billion years in the making. But it is also a song that reminds you that the impossibility of you, you’re entire existence, is short and fleeting. It’s a song that reminds you that you’re loved and have the capacity to love. It’s a song of reclamation and reverie. It’s a song that begs you to celebrate what time you have with the ones you cherish because it all has to eventually stop. It stops but it does not end. Much like U137, Adam’s unfortunate passing isn’t the end, it’s a new beginning.

Adam Forever is the kind of track that’s difficult to un-hear. The synth-like strings swell and crash coupled with a tenebrous piano part that manifests the emotive gap. The guitars create a stable foundation and echo for eternity. Just as things begin to look too bleak the drums pound a crescendo and the song takes on an air of penance. You can’t help but feel completely and utterly redeemed.

You can hear Oscar all over the second track The Great Leap. It opens with a frenetic neo-romantic string section that would make Wagner roll in his grave. Beneath all of this are lush and verdant whole notes that surge listlessly in contrast to the dynamic strings. The song finally drops about halfway through with a guitar part that could make your heart melt. It’s exactly the kind of track you’ve come to love from U137. But there’s something more here. As good as Dreamer On The Run is, you can’t help but feel like U137 is beginning to truly ascend. Another full length will be on its way and The Great Leap, though written two years ago for U137’s second album, gives listeners a lot to get excited about.

I don’t know what happens to us after we die. There are countless pages written on this subject that I better leave to minds greater than mine. I know that we aren’t the tenacious, unbroken and resolute beings we pretend to be. Everything comes to an end, but there are those of us out there that leave an enduring and unforgettable footprint behind before we go. I can’t help but feel that Adam Tornblad is one of those people. Through his life we’re left with music that will ride on waves to the farthest reaches of far space and beyond. Would that we could all profess as much. Adam is gone, but his gift remains. Dammit, Adam, thank you.

U137 links:

Pre-order – iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/adam-forever-the-great-lea p-single/id1291175783

Pre-order – Deep Elm Digital: http://deepelmdigital.com/album/adam-forever-the-great-leap

ALBUM REVIEW: MMTH – PATERNOSTER

There seems to be a general consensus within the instrumental rock genre that as it ages it risks falling prey to the very traits that make it so great in the first place. Bands that attempt to force change risk alienating fans. At the same time, the fans alienate the band by not demanding growth. It’s a delicate yet necessary symbiosis. Pushing the envelope just to say you’ve pushed the envelope achieves nothing. It’s counter-intuitive. Change is good, but change for the sake of change is not. Growth as a band has to be organic. There’s still a lot of room in this genre for bands that just want to write what they feel. It is for this reason that I enjoyed Germany based instrumental band MMTH so much. And this surprised me.

As far as first impressions go MMTH has to be happy with their initial DIY release. Paternoster is filled with great moments. Thematically, the band doesn’t stick with just one emotion. There are great moments of sludgy gloom peppered in with uplifting phrases of retribution. I may even add there are occasions where the band will drop right into indie groove. You’ll find yourself bobbing you’re head in time with a beast rhythm section.

I can appreciate what MMTH has done with this record. You can tell they’ve put a lot of love into the production. Both the sound quality and the mix are well done. The band even released a cassette tape replete with some pretty stellar art.

There’s a lot of diversity on this record. One moment you’re trudging knee deep through a swamp of thick and cloudy chords as on Big Mouth. The next you’re staring out the cargo bay door into the endless reaches of space. The highlight for me on Paternoster would be Pogba is the New Zidane. It starts out with a lonely piano part with guitars quietly humming in the background. The drums start an almost marching cadence which instantly gave me the impression of a convict of old marching to the gallows.

While the sound from song to song is different, there is one thing a lot of them have in common: driving and distorted guitars thrusting their pulsing violence into your earholes. These guys have to have a background in classic rock. As stated before there are parts that really groove and punch you right in the nose. Extra kudos have to be given to the drummer and bassist. These two really know how to carry a tune and seem to compliment each other well. If I had one complaint throughout this album is that there were times when I was begging for the needle to drop and hear an intensely distorted and loud rock breakdown. I wanted them to set their guitars to kill.

There’s a lot to like about Paternoster. The band doesn’t try to go out of its way to be something they aren’t. I’m not flooded with busy or overwrought guitar work or rhythm. Every note seems to have its place. Most importantly MMTH doesn’t come off as overzealous. For a first record I think they’re on the right track and can’t wait to see what they come up with next as they all grow musically.

MMTH links:

Website: mmthband.com
Bandcamp: https://mmth.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mmthband/

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