Lapses is the debut album from Pausal (UK duo Simon Bainton and Alex Smalley) after a 2007 EP for Highpoint Lowlife (reissued in 2009) and, as the label proudly admits, Barge’s first wholly ambient release. Using field recording, samples and instruments (piano, guitar) Pausal construct delicate arrangements, and heavily smudge these with digital processing. The results emerge wispy, blurred, pastel – shamelessly pretty clouds of abstract droning sound.
It’s the Eno of Apollo, the more gaseous bits, that Lapses most closely resembles, combined with the sustained fuzz of Stars of the Lid – no bad thing. Water references abound: the album opens with a growling waterfall in ‘ Bottom Up Pause’; ‘Midshipman’ features the faint sound of falling rain; seagulls and gently clunking flotsam lap against ‘Jetty’. Other pieces, such as ‘One Watery Lens’, wallow in a kind of dank cosiness, but I’d like to have heard more of these maritime references. At 70 minutes it’s difficult to remain engaged throughout – even ambient music can get cloying (or cause sleep!) – but Lapses is among the more accomplished ambient albums of recent times.
Joshua Meggitt
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