I Hold a Wish for You, the first full-length from April Lee (voice, computer, acoustic guitar, harmonium, glockenspiel, music box) and Ricks Ang (guitar, computer, piano, melodica, percussion), flows like a stream of unused and detached energy, a surplus sensuousness that is not absorbed by any end, practical or otherwise. The album first sets its sights to a northern lights display of cascading harmonics on “Candlescape”. A frottage of spindly guitar then plods through an islet of slow-moving textures as Lee’s voice, light and shifting, weaves romantic and elegant streams of spells.
As it progresses, the work is saved by the spare yet steady stitching together of songs and beautiful, tiny sounds and almost subliminal textures. The prevalence of this aspect in the duo’s approach moves the record well into an intimate and ambiguous space where, by and large, the proceedings are neither too soporific nor florid, neither too habitual nor scattered. Far from it, in fact, as no small number of moments achieve a spontaneous vitality in the spatial placement of discreet and amorphous sounds and in the timely shifts brought about in the color and shading of these expansive backdrops.
Particularly in the later stages, when the two of them skirt from the heady piano melody and rich drone of “Porcelain Sky Wink” to the whirling sonic ornaments and digital hiccups of “Sui” and finally come to rest in the comparatively rough, earthy expressionism of “Endless Destination”, led by Lee’s roving voice, the work is able to build much anticipation and coincidence. Refined and robust, these well organized aural assemblages give ample animation and seriousness to the light and prosaic elements of the everyday.
Max Schaefer
