The line between modern classical, ambient and electronics has become increasingly blurry during the noughties. I think that maybe Boomkat has it nearly correct when they categorise albums such as Time Elapsing Handheld with the tag “Home Listening”. Emanuele Errante’s third album is the perfect soundtrack to an evening at home, with the lights down low and nothing in particular to do: all is right in the world. Sometimes even a misanthrope needs a break.
Like Cluster and Eno’s eponymous 1977 album for the Sky label, Time Elapsing Handheld treads the paths of a single neighbourhood (late at night, under a moonlit sky). Yet the album, as a whole, exhibits enough variation in tone and timbre to reward repeated excursions. Poignant, hypnotic and sometimes slightly uneasy, Errante is well aware that ambience, like life in general, requires light and shade. Third track “Counterclockwise” inhabits a similar sound world to the aforementioned Cluster and Eno album, a contemplative Miasmah (sic), emotive piano motifs and an unknown, buzzing, digital tone that serves to emphasise the beauty of the other elements. Opening gambit “Leaving to Nowhere” envelopes the listener in a warm glow, where delicate acoustic guitars cascade and burble. This is Grade A ambience for a new decade, on a level with the likes of Nest, Dakota Suite (whom Errante has collaborated with and remixed) and The Sight Below.
“Later Earlier” is introduced by a compellingly lopsided rhythm, before strings and a harp descend to sketch out a tale of romantic love, or perhaps a digital Appalachia of the mind. There’s some hanging, minimalistic piano action on “Memoirs”, like a radically edited version of Charlegmane Palestine’s Strumming Music if it had been recorded for the City Centre Offices label. In a digital format, the album is fleshed-out further with two short tracks, of which, “Hidden Sun” brings to mind the nocturnal odes to London’s Westway Motorway of Bark Psychosis and the guitar deconstructions of Svalastog. Headphone listening, home listening, whatever… Time Elapsing Handheld is an album constructed for the landscapes of the mind and the heart.
Oliver Laing
