HL is Hurra Caine Landcrash or Dan Hopkins, English filmmaker, curator, musician and site-specific artist, who is incredibly adept at creating warm soothing though quite experimental ambient music. He seems to draw his energy from his environment, plugging into the mood of his surrounding landscape, into the sombre sparseness of the English countryside. It’s much more explicit in this double three inch disc set, primarily because whilst the first disc is 18 odd minutes of audio, the second is a DVD, which also includes the soundtrack as an extra. And it’s on this DVD that the relationship becomes more explicit, with HL’ gentle ambient sounds seamlessly melding with a slow paced ten minute short film, featuring calming still shots of the local countryside including a grass eye point of view, cloud formations and windswept fields. The first disc, however, features different music, four tracks of warm pulses, soothing atmospheres and vague suggestions that often gently trail off into a hypnotic delay fuelled oblivion. It’s clearly electronically manipulated with gentle beats and odd waves of atmosphere. It’s also a work that is apparently inspired by Takuma Sato, a formula one racer known more for his spectacular mistakes than his trips to the podium. Though it’s difficult to hear the relationship, as HL’ music seems to be about anything but mistakes and words like subdued and morose seem to offer more than in terms of capturing the mood than any conceptual idea. Unless that’s the point, unless it’s about Takuma’ struggle to retain his focus beyond the nagging doubts and his growing reputation for failure.
Bob Baker Fish
