Loscil - Clara [CD]

Kranky

£15.30

Genre: Ambient
Format: CD
Catalogue No.: KRANK23
B/C: 79644182312 3
Release Date: 28th May 2021

The latest collection by Cascadian resident loscil aka Scott Morgan is a stunning meditation on light, shade, and decay, sourced from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest.

The subsequent recording was lathe-cut on to a 7-inch, then “scratched and abused to add texture and color,” from which the entirety of Clara was sampled, shape-shifted, and sculpted. Despite their limited palette, the compositions summon a sense of the infinite, swelling and swimming through luminous depths. Certain tracks percolate over narcoleptic metronomes while others slowdive in shimmering shadowplay, sounding at times like some noir music of the spheres.

Although Morgan's compositional premise for Clara was quite defined, the resultant work is wonderfully opaque and spatial, equal parts lush and lurking, traced in fine-grained gradients and radiant silences. The album's title comes from the Latin for ‘bright': a fitting muse for this masterpiece of celestial electric currents and interstitial ether, where “shadows are amplified and bright spots dimmed.”

track listing:
1.Lux 2. Lumina 3. Lucida 4. Stella 5. Vespera 6. Sol 7. Aura 8. Flamma 9. Orta 10. Clara

press quotes for previous release “Equivalents”:

“He has a rich compositional style that is intricate and deliberate, as well as an ability to conjure immersive atmospheres whose surprising depth is hidden by the music’s supine, almost narcotic, qualities.” Pitchfork
“...an immersive, diffuse micro-thicket of wide-eyed synaptic charge. Listeners get lost in loscil’s world, sure. But one can find much of themselves there as well.’” Tinymixtapes

‘It’s remarkable how heavy loscil makes emptiness feel.” Popmatters