(2021) Phillip Wilkerson & Chris Russell - Dark Measures          


Review:
Ambient-electronic sound artists Phillip Wilkerson and Chris Russell come at their respective musics from opposite ends of the spectrum, the former locating his within a lighter and sunnier realm and the latter favouring spaces permeated with darkness and foreboding. That they do makes them ideal partners, and true enough their second collaboration Dark Measures reconciles their contrasting sensibilities into a seamless blend. It’s not the first time the two have united their approaches, with their first joint effort, Vague Traces, surfacing in 2014. Whereas the earlier album involved a two-step process whereby Wilkerson forwarded almost-finished tracks to Russell for completion, Dark Measures involved the two developing the material in tandem and using a diverse array of digital synthesizers and computer softwares to do so. However much their musical identities might differ, the two have followed complementary paths and both play traditional instruments—Wilkerson piano, guitar, and drums and Russell bass guitar—in addition to having extensive familiarity with synthesizers and softwares. Both also preceded their collaboration with a number of solo recordings, Wilkerson’s first appearing in 2005 and Russell’s four years later. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that each is perhaps nowhere more comfortable than in a studio environment packed with gear. Though the opening track is titled “Unopened Doors,” a very vivid sense quickly forms of expanses opening up into vistas whose breadth far exceeds the capacity of human sight. Tones and washes gather to form a peaceful, shimmering array of star-lit drift, the effect lulling and the sound design suggestive of a realm light years from earth. There’s subtlety and nuance, too: listen closely and the faintest wisps of strings can be heard intoning alongside the never-ending unfurl. Having been eased into a state of entrancement, the listener’s heart-rate slows even more for “Evening’s Embrace,” where gently surging waves crest against a glimmering backdrop. A bell-like figure announces the transition to “Myriad Visions” and its softly radiant stream of glassy tones and convulsing pulses. At this stage in the journey, it feels as if one has somehow accessed a zone that’s considerably more remote and mind-altering, especially when patterns blaze, stutter, and ripple through the combusting atmospheres. After the intense activity of “Myriad Visions” comes the gleaming stillness of “Deep Lane” and twinkling phantasmagoria that is “Distant Vistas.” The penultimate “Unbroken Devotion” swells to an almost symphonic level of beauty with a hymnal tapestry whose sound design verges on baroque. The peaceful zone to which the material has been gravitating in its second half reaches its fullest culmination in the serene meditation “Faring Forward.” Whereas the colour cover photograph of Vague Traces shows an individual bathed in light within a natural outdoors setting, the achromatic image gracing the front of Dark Measures is colder by comparison and, in displaying what appears to be a planetary surface viewed from far above, more abstract too. One would expect such a difference to finds its way into the tone of the music, and it’s true that the newer set is slightly more brooding than the other. But when Dark Measures resolves with the soothing embrace of “Faring Forward,” differences in the musical presentation begin to seem far less pronounced than those in the albums’ visual treatments.





Track Listing:
1.Unopened Doors 10:34
2.Evening's Embrace 11:10
3.Myriad Visions 08:43
4.Deep Lane 09:21
5.Distant Vistas 08:14
6.Unbroken Devotion 07:28
7.Faring Forward 04:50


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

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