It’s been a long, strange trip for Mick Harris. Once upon a time he was the drummer with Napalm Death, (in)famous for compacting heavy metal into super-concentrated tracks of sometimes just a few seconds duration. But he’s gone to the other extreme with his dark ambient project Lull. Like a Slow River is his eight or ninth album under this name, and it’s a challenging listen. Five tracks are listed on this 60 minute outing, but it might as well be one long suite, as the pieces all sound more or less the same. This disc exists in a hinterland somewhere between music and noise – there’s no rhythm, harmony, or melody – and yet… If it’s noise, it’s not confrontational in the style of Whitehouse et al. It’s the aural equivalent of standing on a hill, listening to the sound of the wind, looking out across a bleak, barren landscape – and in fact one of the tracks is titled ‘Treeless Grounds’. The overall sound is reminiscent of Thomas Koner (and indeed Lull & Koner shared space on Virgin’s groundbreaking Ambient 4: Isolationism CD back in 1994), but not as austere. Lull is unlikely to ever find himself on the cover of glossy magazines, but the few people who do buy this release will savour it, the way you would an expensive bottle of wine.
Ewan Burke
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