It’s one of those weeks… Being a former ginger/redhead, I have problems handling the moist 25-30 Celcius) heat in the Netherlands. So I hardly get to do anything, and I get distracted all the time, like work and such. So I have been trying to start a review of “Mother Moon” by 400 Lonely Things several times, and each time I end up just listening and floating away, Drifting on the waves … And I didn’t even feel bad about listening to it over and over and over …
Produced by William Basinski, 400 Lonely Things is a project by Craig Varian inspired by recordings around, based in, or related to an old mill. A beautiful PDF was sent to us, and it might well be part of the Bandcamp download, but how you get your hands on it when you get the CD: I don’t know. The 400 Lonely Things concept focuses on the arrangement of lost and found sounds, and the melancholia is certainly audible in the release. Also, the journey aspect is very well set in this release, the journey being the descriptive part of environments through sound as a medium. So in many areas where the boxes should be ticked to make a release interesting, those boxes are actually ticked.
Musicwise, “Mother Moon” is an absolute beauty. Almost 80 minutes, with deep drones, minimal melodic lines, scarce structural sounds (no rhythms), ambience and, on occasion, a mesmerizing voice preaching solitude and melancholia. And here and there, an ever so slight ‘touch of Coil’ (for example, in “In Darkness”). So at this point, I would say: Get the album and don’t worry too much about everything else. But the booklet and combined conceptual approach is a bit of a downer for me, as it turns out. I mean: Concepts make many releases I know/heard/have enjoyable, and I know all about it as an artist myself. But in a weird way the conceptual approach is so elaborate and massive that it almost forces me to think about it. And all I want to do is just enjoy the flow, as a psychonaut, ride the waves and not be bothered too much with all that mumbo jumbo. But that’s just me. I think… I hope… Other than that: Go Flow, Go Dream, Go Listen, Just ‘Be’ …
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