(2021) Robin Guthrie - Pearldiving


Review:
When Cocteau Twins co-founder Robin Guthrie released the Mockingbird Love EP in October, he said that it was the first of a few releases that were on the way soon. He wasn’t exaggerating. Less than a month later, he’s back with Pearldiving, his first solo instrumental album in nine years. Guthrie’s style is so influential and often imitated — shoegaze and post-rock especially owe a huge debt — the style may not seem quite as mysterious as it once did, but no once coaxes waves of beauty out of a guitar quite like him. Paired with gentle piano and ticking electronic percussion, these 10 majestic, euphoric instrumentals sound like mist evaporating on a lake a dawn, (pearly) dewdrops glistening on leaves, or a view of Earth from space. “After Another Flower, released just a few days before the untimely passing of my friend and co-conspirator Harold Budd, I felt the need to break my studio down and build it up again afresh to clear my head. The dawn of many of my previous releases was travel. I loved being somewhere new to work but, for a while now, the pandemic hasn’t permitted that. So earlier this year I ‘stayed at home’ and created Pearldiving. This is my first instrumental album since Fortune and I guess I had some feelings to process.”





Track Listing:
1.Ivy 04:47
2.Ouestern 03:25
3.Castaway 03:56
4.On the Trail of Grace 03:11
5.Les Amourettes 02:32
6.Euphemia 04:15
7.Oceanaire 03:55
8.Presence 03:04
9.Kerosine 03:04
10.The Amber Room 03:18


Media Report:
Genre: ambient
Country: France
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits