Friday, 19 November 2010

Space Weather: Low Earth - High Praise



"There seems to have been some rough stellar conditions at the Space Weather satellite for the recording of their second album. Where their bass, synth and guitar debut, “Untitled,” was a relatively warm melancholic drone affair with plenty of clear night sky in its sights, the instrumental Low Earth takes things down a few clicks on the Celsius scale. This Glasgow/Edinburgh-based trio have turned their hand to a much darker record this time around. It’s what you’d imagine the soundtrack to the deep low moods of space station downtime to sound like – the “low” part of the record’s title is right on the money. Where “Untitled” was certainly cut from a similarly instrumental blanket of stars, Low Earth’s five tracks feel a little icier in direction. With “Tramsmute The Black Rock,” a gloriously prog title if ever there was one, there’s even a journey into the instrumental melodic tundrascapes between The Cure’s “Faith” and “Pornography” albums. The introductory “How Far Is It?” sits in a cold orbit around a colder Earth, the sense of a distance come and a distance to go running deep through the track’s minimal electronics. As it fades out into the distance, the closing shots of Silent Running in a forever-loop are the only appropriate visuals. Still too short at nearly nineteen minutes long, the vast “A Brief Swansong” is a wash of drone waves against the mind’s shore. An open space of eddies and bass notes lost in water, the track is a rootless piece of minimalism brooding against the horizon line. Bleaker, but better than their debut." Scott McKeating (writing for foxy digitalis)

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