The Useless Lesson is Seattle-based Kerry Leimer’s seventh full-length album, and offers plenty of nourishment for the discerning ambient music aficionado. The CD is divided into three lengthy 10-minute-plus tracks and four shorter pieces. Dreamy, drifting, wintry textures abound, and the music is mostly consonant and inviting. It’s no surprise that Leimer cites the likes of Cluster, Eno and Neu as being amongst his favourite musicians.
54 year-old Leimer is a Fine Arts graduate, and graphic designer by trade, and he takes a defiantly cerebral approach to music – indicated by track titles such as ‘Anosognosia’. After the calm, pretty drones of the first two pieces, it’s something of a shock when sequencers and drums kick in on third track ‘Music That Conceives of Itself as Music’. The trance-inducing ‘Long After Dowland’ adds subtle, liminal guitar work from Leo Abrahams (who played on Eno’s Another Day on Earth).
This album contains an excellent blend of ambient and neo-classical music, which should find favour with fans of a certain eggheaded Englishman.
Download ‘Declension of Need’ from the album.
Ewan Burke
