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Review by Bill Binkelman From the duo Hammock (Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson) comes an EP that continues to explore the same somber, introspective guitar-drenched ambient music that made their previous full-length album, Kenotic, a multi-hued sepia tinted soundscape which proved challenging but worthy of exploration. stranded under endless sky (which has one of the most evocative cover photographs in recent memory, being a black and white study of a couple observed through a passing train window, so that they are only seen as blurred silhouettes while the background snow-covered landscape is in markedly juxtaposed sharp focus) displays the same careful attention to nuance placed within a near cacophonous wall of sound created by guitars and textures. The mood is once again pensive and reflective, not truly dark but decidedly in keeping with the wintry scene on the album cover. The title track opens the EP with the sound of that train (from the front cover) soon enveloped by echoed sustained guitar notes that carom off each other as they escalate into the cold grey sky overhead. Pealing notes and dronish textures swirl around these reverberations creating a dense yet cloud like soundscape. As the song develops, the whirling textures become almost all-enveloping. "Birds Flying In Sequence" opens with what sounds like muted church organ melding with clanging tones and a lush warm drone that also is merged with serene guitar notes and brief snatches of environmental field recordings. When a subtle yet defined percussion rhythm emerges, a more recognizable guitar comes into view and the resultant blend of all these elements creates a peaceful yet somber tone poem, until a blistering series of electric guitar leads explodes with subdued fury. The rhythms become more complex too, with what sounds like castinets and hand and steel drums and later even thunderous bass drum beats. "Always Wishing You Were Somewhere Else" is an all too brief forlorn track that combines elements of Projekt-style shoegazer with a neo-Western sensibility (courtesy of what sounds like reverbed pedal or lap steel guitar); the tune conveys a lot in its three minutes: deserted streets, hot dry sun, and a bleak existence stretching out with no end in sight. "An Empty Field," the longest track on the album at ten minutes long, closes the EP in fine fashion. Jeff Pearce-like ambient guitar echoes and sighs; the effect is a blend of beauty and melancholy, as the instrument's plaintive voice goes blowing across the vast empty field of the song's title. Later, dramatic but subdued sustained electric leads waft slowly overhead, before submerging, only to reappear as part of the now trademark Hammock "wall of sound." Matt Slocum guest appearance on cello is discernible in the mix and it offers a solitary sadness to the tune, almost a moan (not a cry, though) of loneliness and despair. The guitars are layered so densely that picking out a single line and differentiating it from another is pointless. At this stage, the music of Byrd and Thompson is, as usual, about the whole, not the sum of the parts. Paradoxically, the music itself is economical in feel and emotional character even if, from an literal engineering standpoint, it's just the opposite (being an assemblage of sounds, textures, tones, drones, notes, chords, and effects). stranded under endless sky is not for everyone. It packs a wallop as the sheer volume of the music itself can overwhelm you as if you were caught in a sonic undertow. However, at some point it works best to surrender to the waves of fluid guitars and drones/textures which pull you into the center of the emotional vortex that Hammock is all about. As with kenotic, it's not an easy trip to make but it should prove worthwhile. |
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