Beachcombing finds Bob Holroyd exploring ambient electronic and acoustic soundscapes evoking inwardly looking emotive and reflective moods. Present on beachcombing are two tracks in Holroyd’s familiar African chant sampling style, specifically on ‘Sacred Light’ which infuses African chant with woodwinds, drums and electronics in a downbeat ethno-ambient excursion. However the album is wider in scope than expansion on a theme, it incorporates acoustic guitar with the presence of guitarists Simon Painter and Craig Joiner as well as including the percussion, bass guitar and cello. These elements, along with Holroyd’s greater exploration of keyboards in his composition, has the album leaning towards a more classically composed and arranged tableau than his earlier works which lent more heavily on the sampling and electronic compositional tools for their construction.
Yet do not be mistaken, this is an electronic album per se, however it escapes narrow purism, and cross fertilises from world music, classical acoustic and electronic. It recaptures an emphasis on musicianship amongst the technological soundscape and finds nuance and delicacy stemming from restraint. While tracks build into complex interweaving’s of elements as in the first track ‘Glow’, the sense is towards the richness of the tableau. Title track ‘Beachcombing’ is a wistful acoustic guitar and cello number with electronic minimal soundscapes and whispers of samples. ‘Collector of Souls’ is as foreboding as the album achieves, with its slight electronic ominous feel, vocal sounds treated into shadows and the volley of percussion down a dark alley only to be clubbed by a wall of electronics. However this is an anomaly in an album that is generally optimistic, self-assured and content. There is even a wisp of the tendency within ambience towards new age soundscapes and tropes but Holroyd is cogent enough to steer clear of the shallow waters while conveying the import of the inclination through intelligent composition. ‘Renewal’ mixes the sampling of middle eastern singing piano and effects; ‘Beautiful domination’ is a an well executed ambient dub track that has a slow sultry groove and enough sub to please the sonic sensualist. There is even a sub-continental skittering almost drum and bass track in ‘Samsara’.
‘Beachcombing’ is certainly not making claims towards being at the forefront of conceptual ambient albums but it is a well-conceived album that conveys Holroyd’s development to a more nuanced space that conveys a fuller and deeper rendition of the human experience as can be conveyed through music.
Innerversitysound
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