Sublamp is Ryan Connor, an LA-based musician whose ‘Breathletters’ attempts to explore, through the electronic processing of various instruments and sources, the concept of sound as a pre-language form of communication. Thus Connor treats guitars, violin, glockenspiel and electric bass in a ‘pre-musical’ manner, allowing tones and extra-musical sounds to gently, haphazardly unfold, arranging them subsequently into pleasant digital streams and pairing them with abstract field recordings. It sits comfortably on Yann Novak’s Dragon’s Eye Recordings label alongside artists Celer and Son of Rose, and is firmly part of the growing field of post clicks n’ cuts producers mixing acoustic sound sources with digital frippery.
The crunch of what sounds like snow underfoot in ‘Echolalic’ is an evocative introduction, and the warm yet creepy subterranean rumblings on ‘Dust Lessons’ recalls Eno’s ‘On Land’, but much of ‘Breathletters’ fails to make an impression. That of course could be the point: the album’s 39 minutes drift effortlessly by, and the lack of demands placed on the listener is often just what’s wanted.
Joshua Meggitt
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