It’s been six years since we last heard from US-based trio Kiln (aka Kevin Hayes, Kirk Marrison and Clark Rehberg III), which is a heck of a long time in electronic music years, the trio managing to leave their sizeable audience both hanging and salivating for more after 2007’s impressive ‘Dusker’ album. If anything, this more than worthy (if delayed) follow-up ‘Meadow-Watt’s sees Kiln refining their already intricate approach to sound design even further, subtly integrating elements of guitars, drums and field recordings into their deepest sounding and most groove-based collection of tracks to date. There’s certainly a more perceptible emphasis on the bottom end this time around, with opening track ‘Roil’ seeing fluttery, crushed synthetic textures and a deep, distant sub-bass thud resolving themselves into a dubbed-out roll, the emergence of opaque-sounding analogue synths generating an almost sub-aquatic feel to the slow, murmuring grooves and intricate flourishes of percussion.
‘Pinemarten’ drops the tempo down into even more cinematic territory, as a treated woodwind section adds palpable warmth to the delicate spiderweb of hissing electronic textures and delay-treated live drum samples that play off against them, the emergence of live guitar chords near the end completing the wander out into laidback grooves. Elsewhere, there’s a sprawling post-rock feel to the intro section of ‘Willowbrux’ as rich treated guitar chords bleed out into the distance against melancholic organ tones and gentle piano, only for crisp hiphop-centred rhythms to suddenly lock into place, the trailing keys adding a gentle counterpoint as they wind themselves around the swaggering beats. If there’s a hint of Telefon Tel Aviv’s intricate fusion of processed live instrumentation and synthesis to be found in the aforementioned track, ‘Moth And Moon’ ventures further out into opulent noir-jazz swing as John Barry-esque orchestral swells brood against ominous sampled drums and chiming guitar chords, the glitchy processing adding a ragged, worn-sounding feel that suggests the drag of aged vinyl given a spectral digital edge. A brilliant return from Kiln, with what’s easily their lushest sounding effort yet. This probably just edges in there as one of my favourite downtempo releases of 2013.
