Sydney-based electronic producer Eli Murray spent 2006-2008 as part of the Southern Steppa crew running the Abercrombie’s weekly Submerged night, an event geared towards dubstep and more experimental electronic sounds, and its for exactly this reason that Murray found himself gravitating towards ‘non-club’ centred music after arriving home from DJing out. This debut album from Murray as Gentleforce ‘Sacred Spaces’ offers up the ninth chapter in Feral Media’s ‘POWWOW’ CD series and certainly comes across as emblematic of that aforementioned calm aesthetic, focussing on gentle ambience and melodic harmonies, with any rhythmic elements kept to a subtle background pulse. Indeed, it’s opener ‘Learning To Forgive’ that offers up one of the few comparatively beat-anchored moments here, with tentative, blurred-out sounding melodic chords and what sounds like the distant crawl of treated guitar tones sliding over a glittering backdrop of gently pulsing kickdrums, the resulting dreamlike fusion calling to mind a beatific gliding atmosphere that sits somewhere between slow-motion house and motorik.
‘Oh The Mystery, Oh The Wonder’ meanwhile sees majestic sweeps of what sounds like treated brass arcing back and forth over a twinkling backdrop of piano keys, fluttering percussion and juddering woody kickdrums, before ‘Lift Up Your Weary Head’ offers up a haunting side-trip into accapella-focussed ambience as Murray’s own looped and multi-tracked vocal harmonies trail away like smoke into the ether over the sampled noise of children playing. It’s arguably the ten-minute long ‘Ode To Moritz’ (I’m guessing a Basic Channel reference here) that offers up this collection’s real understated centrepiece here though, soundtracking a deeply cinematic wander down into gaseous-sounding droning electronic textures and ghostly minimal techno rhythms that almost sound like they’ve drifted in from the next room, a path that’s also deftly explored with some additional subtly-placed vocal elements on the comparatively dark and moody ‘New Dawn.’ A compelling debut that repays repeated listening, ‘Sacred Spaces’ certainly sees Murray succeeding in crafting the ideal antidote to an overdose of club-centric beats.
Chris Downton
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