Marseilles-based ambient / classical musician Wilson Trouve released his debut album as Monochromie ‘Angels And Demons’ on Fluttery last year, and just twelve months on, this second album ‘Colours In The Dark’ offers up his debut release on Time Released Sound. While ‘Angels And Demons’ saw Trouve subtly shifting between ambient, post-rock and classical influences, the eleven tracks collected here see him placing piano firmly at the forefront of his compositions. There’s a lulling, gentle atmosphere to much of the music here, with the emphasis on slow graceful piano motifs colliding with subtle ambient textures often lending this album a film score-like quality. Opening track ‘Brightness’ almost suggests comparisons with some of Harold Budd & Brian Eno’s collaborations as slow, opaque-sounding piano keys gather gentle pace against a wash of background ambient colour, the emergence of more brooding undertones almost suggesting a wounded yet still optimistic feel as gauzy phased harmonics trail back and forth.
If it’s a more than appropriate curtain roller for this collection, ‘Dust And Breath’ sees Trouve playing far more with a sense of space as reverb-treated piano chords sit almost suspended in space, the echo between each note bleeding into the wash of background drones that almost seem to stretch out to the horizon. Elsewhere, ‘Love Song’ sees the cinematic qualities returning to the edges of the mix as rich orchestral tones build beneath a simple repeated piano motif, the emergence of swelling cello textures adding an undertone of brooding grandeur, before ‘Constellations’ offers up the one moment here that omits the piano as an element completely, instead sending a wash of what sounds like distorted radio chatter hanging just tantalisingly out of hearing range, as sinister Tangerine Dream-esque synth atmospheres waft in the foreground. Beautifully restrained classically tinged ambience that’s limited to just 400 copies on CD.
