Oh how easy it is to underestimate the possibilities of sound. Too often do we think of the sound world inhabited by music as one of constraints, of walls and boxes, but we are wrong and Ensemble Pearl are here to prove it. A supergroup of the truest kind, the quartet is made up of Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O))), KTL, etc), Atsuo (Boris), Michio Kurihara (Ghost, as in the Japanese psychedelic rockers not the Swedish MORsters) and Bill Herzog (Joel R. L. Phelps & the Downer Trio) but positive feelings for the other projects of these fine musicians aside, this is still a fascinating debut record.
Much of the extraordinary sonic landscape here is provided by the glacial pace at which these four musicians have chosen to move. Atsuo is a drummer not always prone to restraint but here the gracious delicacy he provides is essential to the progress of the album. Natural tempos fold unseen into one another, with Herzog’s basslines providing the glue holding them together. Over this come the twin guitar talents of Kurihara and O’Malley. In some ways the pair are very similar but in others completely different and one senses that both points of view are utilised by the band here.
It is hard to put into words quite how sumptuous the sounds Kurihara and O’Malley coax out of their guitars here are. What is truly astonishing though is how varied the palate they utilise is. Most of this record is erring on the quiet side of drone, that much is obvious from the first listen, yet stylistically the duo are clearly swerving about all over the place. O’Malley lays down a few of his trademark minimalistic guitar fragments, and a few of his equally well known doomy power notes, but alongside him you have Kurihara a man not at all shy of soloing like a man possessed when the mood takes him. On opener ‘Ghost Parade’ in fact it does, and there are further moments of what (by drone standards) one would call guitar histrionics that are dominant on ‘Island Epiphany’ as well. Contrast this with the pure blissful spacey ambience of ‘Giant’ and the vaguely straightforward guitar figures that are also on display at various points over the course of the album and you get a delightfully open ended take on what drone can, and perhaps should, be.
Perhaps what renders this record quite so exceptional however is its overall sonic aesthetic, from the composition to the mixing. This is one of the most phenomenally gorgeous sounding albums to have graced these ears in many a year. Sticking this record on in your headphones is an experience of very real joy. There are eerie creaks, reverberating drums, undefined bits of noise and crackle, all very much taking place around you. It’s like the band are in orbit around you, teasing every last drop of aural beauty out of what is available to them. It brings together so many approaches to what I would, perhaps pretentiously, call the “avant-garde” and makes it all fit into one wonderful hazy whole. This is sound as a living, breathing phenomenon, which is the most astonishing form it can ever take.
‘Ensemble Pearl’ is out on Drag City today, Monday 18th March.
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Much of the extraordinary sonic landscape here is provided by the glacial pace at which these four musicians have chosen to move. Atsuo is a drummer not always prone to restraint but here the gracious delicacy he provides is essential to the progress of the album. Natural tempos fold unseen into one another, with Herzog’s basslines providing the glue holding them together. Over this come the twin guitar talents of Kurihara and O’Malley. In some ways the pair are very similar but in others completely different and one senses that both points of view are utilised by the band here.
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