(2021) Kelly David - Illusive  


Review:
As prototypical a Spotted Peccary production as could be imagined, Illusive is Kelly David‘s second release for the label and a meticulously crafted sequel to 2019’s Meditation in Green. Like many a musician, David’s path to becoming an ambient artist was circuitous. While growing up in Washington, DC, he learned piano, trumpet, and French horn, and played, as many a budding musician will, in a variety of bands. The epiphany came for David upon hearing Wendy Carlos’s Switched on Bach and seeing Keith Emerson’s Moog modular at an EL&P show, experiences that naturally prompted his own immersion in synthesizer-generated music. A further plunge occurred when he acquired an ARP 2600 while studying classical music at the University of Cincinnati and began composing with it. Consistent with that, Illusive was crafted from a broad array of MOOG, Sequential, Nord, and modular synthesizers and represents many years of developing expertise in working with such gear and nurturing a personal approach to ambient composition. Whereas the title Meditation in Green carries with it pastoral associations, Illusive is rather more, well, elusive and open-ended. Perhaps it’s David’s way of acknowledging the sleight-of-hand involved in creating soundscapes that are powerfully evocative yet in essence pure sonic arrangements carrying with them strongly suggestive properties. Illusive is unquestionably allusive, and not just because certain titles—“Top of the Trees” and “Northcoast,” specifically—conjure visual imagery to complement the sound presentation. Samples of the natural world are woven into the album, but David’s manipulations generally render them less conspicuous than they might be in another producer’s hands. That said, there are occasions when traces of the real world are audible, such as when bird sounds appear towards the end of “Palione” and when crashing waves introduce “Northcoast.” His command as a sound designer and composer is evident the moment “Sentinel” inaugurates the album with susurration of the most ethereal kind. Waves of synthetic sound spread throughout the aural field in slow, graceful movements, the material so seductive the listener feels pulled into the soundscape and happy to surrender to it. An ethereal feel permeates “Top of the Trees,” so much so that it’s easy to imagine oneself high above the ground breathing in the fresh forest air and scanning the landscape for signs of life. Two long-form pieces, “Into the Ether” and “Northcoast,” offer immersions of an even lengthier type at twelve and fifteen minutes, respectively. As peaceful as Illusive often is, it’s not without drama and tension. Dark undercurrents are often discernible beneath the music’s placid surfaces, such that the shape-shifting “Palione” oscillates between blissful calm and ominous threat; the album-closing “Northcoast” likewise includes chilling intimations of foreboding and menace. It’s possible, of course, to see the contrasts in “Palione” as symbolic of the chasm separating the safety of one’s domicile and the threat of contamination associated with the virus-spreading outdoors. In that regard, one might also regard Illusive as a safe space or sanctuary to which one can return at any time. David’s very much his own man, so to speak, yet there are moments where it’s possible to hear echoes of other artists. Those bright, animated synths in “Garden of the Forgotten,” for instance, could have surfaced in any number of Kraftwerk productions—“Europe Endless” comes to mind, for one—and Steve Roach fans could certainly find moments on Illusive that might be mistaken for some by him. Even so, Illusive ultimately impresses as a Kelly David creation as opposed to a pastiche overly indebted to the work of others.





Track Listing:
1. Sentinel (09:18 )
2. Palione (09:55)
3. Distance (07:32)
4. Garden of the Forgotten (05:18 )
5. Top of the Trees (08:01)
6. Into The Ether (12:24)
7. Northcoast (15:50)


Media Report:
Genre: ambient
Country: USA
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