A Sort of Radiance reminds me of Tim Hecker’s Radio Amor, in so many ways. From the intuitive use of texture and dissonance, to the spaciousness that remains at the heart of proceedings, even when the recording is dense and hyper-real. There’s one major difference that I can discern, apart from the intervening decade or so, and it’s this where I would hazard a guess that Tim Hecker was raised on My Bloody Valentine and Basic Channel, Chicago’s Matthew Mullane (Fabric) sounds more like he’s in the float tank with Dolphins into the Future, chilling to sounds of mid-period Cluster, the Sky back catalogue and Edgar Froese’s Macula Transfer.
Spectrum Spools is a new sub-label of Editions Mego, curated by John Elliott of Emeralds. You can certainly here some facets of Emeralds/Imaginary Softwoods coming through in the formative releases for the label. The Raison D’etre of Spectrum Spools is to unleash the “talent shining up out of the North American synth underground.” Well, at least in editions of more than twenty-five cassettes, that sell out at source, way before my behind-the-times sensibilities are able to catch up with what the kids in the Midwest are doing. And I must admit that I was quite surprised when this style of Sky influenced synth-adelic sounds started to emanate from musicians in their early twenties. After fifteen or so years listening to Eno, Cluster, solo Roedelius and Moebius, the Fax label etc., and being aware of the whole Siltbreeze revival, “Shitgaze” etc., I wasn’t expecting mellow, aquatic ambience to make it big, especially on the back of the new underground cassette culture. Goes to show, what do I know?
What I do know is that A Sort of Radiance is a perfect late-night album. When the travails and worries of the day can be left behind, and an album is summoned to transport your weary synapses to a better place, a Spectrum Spools release could help you to let go of it all and just CHILL. There’s a certain Boards of Canada hopefulness in “Leaving the House”, all sky-bound synths, burbling satellites, arpeggiating arpeggios and pulsing drones. “Light Float” reminds me of the proto-Kraftwerk outfit Organisation, with their Tone Float, maybe just in title, but it definitely sparkles and swells like a beach on a moonlit night. Vignettes like “High Ceilings” and “Controls”, despite their relative brevity, deliver more punch and angles than the longer pieces, and act as a transition between them. An engaging ambient album from Matthew Mullane, I look forward to seeing where he takes this sound in future outings.
Oliver Laing
