It is perhaps understandable, given the march of music technology, that when you hear terms like “dance music” or “ambient,” your mind immediately conjures something made in the realms of the electronic music maker. But before the rise of synths, both those music forms certainly existed and were formed by more analog instrumentation.
It is to this idea that Jon DeRosa turns for Aarktica’s 10th album, Ecstatic Lightsongs, an album that reminds us that grace and beauty and understatement and ambiance are not just the bastions of synth surfer or digital dreamscaper. Sure, synths wash through the album, softening and soaring as required, but it is the use of effects-laden guitars that run from understatement to anthemic creschendo, orchestral sweeps and swoons, drums that often become the melody itself, and all manner of recognisable instruments doing often unrecognisable things, that makes this album what it is. and what it is, is sensational. It is also an album which comes as quite a contrast to the less song-oriented, purely instrumental previous album, Paeans.
“Trick of the Light” is a gorgeous way to draw us in, a subtle, drum shuffle holds the center, a tip of the hat to the sonic world that Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock created, and the perfect platform for all manner of chiming and charming sonics and heavenly harmonies to be layered up from.
“Why Say Anything?” heads into more indie-folk realms, a deft finger-picked guitar closely intertwining with the hushed and intimate vocals, “Ecstatic Light Transmissions” returns to the graceful instrumental form that he has always done so well, a track full of gentle atmospheres and growing anticipations, and “Laughing In The Rain” gently echoes Bunnymen-esque psychedelia.
Many themes are explored here, most of which relate to our place in the world, the importance of human connection, and our position in the cosmic and perhaps spiritual scheme of things. And that idea of friendship and companionship is perfectly explored in “Cloud Formations,” a tasteful and tender duet between DeRosa and vocalist Britt Warner and that oh so poignant line “Is this what it’s like to have a friend?”
If there is not quite a sense of melancholia running through these songs, there is undoubtedly one of whistfulness and reflection, an underplayed emotional beauty. But it is in the underplaying that such emotions find their power. The fact that the listener is asked not just to listen to these songs, but to connect and understand them, to put themselves in the narrator’s shoes, makes them relatable, real, and universal.
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