The introduction of a new child into the life of Mark Nelson seemed in large part responsible for the change in degrees of acquaintanceship among the elements that comprised For Waiting, For Chasing, his previous full-length release on the Mosz imprint. Though that work tenderly puckered feint nursery rhyme’s into a crackled canvas of obscure oscillations and meditative guitars wrung through a host of muddy analogue delays, White Bird Release embraces another kind of change, one sprung not from external introductions, but their internal reverberations. By sinking down into the style from which he began (the one which, incidentally, dates back to his days as a member of Labradford), Nelson soon finds himself sinking upwards, turning this past into context and ensphering it in a similar yet different energy.
Nelson’s short memory is to his advantage, then, since it gives a certain flexibility to the skillful layering and placement of instruments in the soundfield, a certain lightness to the slowly shifting fog-formations. With “There Can Be No Thought Of Finishing”, his low frequency sonic ceremony is hushed yet of a certain awe, bracing rather than relaxing. For the rest of the recording, electronics and organic instruments are mutually enriching and fertilizing, maintaining at once a calm presence and a vividness in the revitalization of these wide-eyed yet finely balanced and paced compositions. Nelson may have been here before, but on this occasion he’s taken this aural space up with a cusp-of-the-moment resourcefulness, which births real mobility, suppleness, and radiating energy.
Max Schaefer
