Consequence Music is Glasgow based Ewan Mackenzie’s debut full-length album. He evokes a quietly introspective late-night listening mood, where long tracks lull at a consistently languid BPM. The emphasis on sustained synthetic notes, repeating melody lines and the use of voice as a textural rather than lyrical device draws the listener in to an ethereal realm, providing enough space and grace to encourage a peaceful drifting off. Yet, his skill as a percussionist is evident here, with gentle, well placed beats providing enough punch to draw attention back to the music. In this sense, it very much ebbs and flows as a sojourn in intensive listening.
Some compare his work to his fellow Scottish counterparts the Boards of Canada, which is not an entirely unfair analogy but I do wonder if it is made more because of a common geography rather than a common sound. Suspicions aside, ‘Consequence Music’ does share a hint of pre-dawn ‘Geogdaddi’ darkness, with the melancholy innocence lost mood of the Boards’ ‘In A Beautiful Place’ EP. His style of composition with a concern towards a gradually evolving sound continuum draws upon the heritage of C20th composers like Steve Reich and Harold Budd but the interwoven melodies and textures on this album make it more of a cinematic experience, a soundscape for a film (or a dream) that exists only in the inner mind’s eye.
Renae Mason.
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