Constant Light are a really unique Melbourne duo creating experimental minimal music with lots of space. Their music is dreamy, krautrock influenced, quite repetitive and mostly instrumental, with drum machines and droning synths, bubbling atmospheres and elongated loops. Many of us first heard them via the excellent Iceage label compilation of last year Shape of Sound Vol.1, but this collection really expands upon their palette, offering up a band who have a unique ability to create really beautiful lush and hypnotic music, yet also retain an experimental edge, either via structure or a few difficult sounds thrown into the mix. You can hear elements of everyone from Budd and Eno to Vangelis in these sounds if you wish to.
It’s the work of Sasha Margolis who was previously part of experimental noise band Y35.5 and also Automating, as well as James Dean who helms Electric Sound Studios. This isn’t an album per se, rather it’s a collection of newly remixed material they produced and released in 2010 on miniature cds as well as the aforementioned piece from The Shape of Sound as well as three previously unreleased works, including a Suicide cover, the only track featuring vocals, and probably the weakest track here, shattering the mood they had so effortlessly created. So even though it’s not an album, it fits together beautifully (aside from the Suicide track), and it’s the kind of music that just washes over you, these beautiful ambient drifts, experiential music where your consciousness is affected but you barely remember you’re even listening to music. Beautiful.
Bob Baker Fish
