A kaleidoscopic range of releases from Cubs, D. Rothon, Rose City Band and Lucy Gooch explore inside-out creativity

Although it may not have been a sustainable or desirable situation, the last year or so of socially distanced writing and recording has certainly seemed to have pushed more than just electronic instrumental landscapers into deeper and wider inner sound worlds, to paradoxically create more open-ended works. As the releases below testify from a variety of angles…

From Galway’s Rusted Rail, the label that also brought us the hearty home-cooked feast of Loner Deluxe’s Field Recordings earlier this year, comes the even more generously proportioned double-length River of Amber / Frozen Waterfall from the returning Cubs – a remotely-convened supergroup of sorts featuring members of A Lilac Decline, Loner Deluxe, Phantom Dog Beneath the Moon and United Bible Studies contributing compositions, voices and instrumentation in varying combinations.

Assembled mostly apart in separate recording bunkers scattered across Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Sweden and the US, this twin – rather than strictly double – album pairing (which had its Frozen Waterfall portion released digitally last year) arrives in one small but expanded 20-track CD.

For all of its internal girth, the collection hangs together compellingly as a sprawling suite to happily get lost within. Leaning into more outré rustic environs than the aforementioned Field Recordings but also sharing some of its nineties-to-noughties left of the dial reference points, River of Amber / Frozen Waterfall is ripe for the ears of those that enjoyed the successive US indie, post-rock, Americana and acid-folk revival scenes through that timeframe.

Consequently, there are warming nods to the most languid wares of Madder Rose and Yo La Tengo (“Forest Gate”, “Time Slowly Melts Away” and “Aunt Myrtle”); the balmy melodicism of early-Lambchop (“Thunder Calling”); the dark yet nakedly beatific moods of Rivulets and Palace Brothers (“The Heart That Lies” and “Faster in the Dark”); the pastoral-prog-psych shapes of Espers (“The Beaten Path Through the High Grass” and “Frozen Waterfall”); and lateral electro-acoustic blissfulness (“Tape Owl”, “Moonshine Sunshine” and more).

Whilst unquestionably a team effort, with its satisfying mash of sound and song crafters, it’s arguable that the many vocal and lyrical moments driven by Cecilia Danell (of A Lilac Decline) give this assortment much of its alluring authority. Taken altogether though, River of Amber / Frozen Waterfall is a low-key triumph to keep coming back to.

Clay Pipe Music continues its own successful roll of creative hard graft with Memories of Earth, the second album from D. Rothon. An interstellar leap on from 2018’s well-received Nightscapes LP and part-inspired by 2019’s Moving to Mars exhibition at London’s Design Museum, which reignited memories of its creator’s childhood fixations with off-Earth travel, this follow-up is both gloriously nostalgic for early-space-age optimism and futurology as well as wistfully imbued by the loneliness that long-distance Milky Way travel might eventually entail.

Stylistically rich and diverse, with Rothon’s multi-instrumentalist agility aided by guest vocals from Johanna Warren and Claudia Barton, there is a lot going on inside – on top of coupling with the conceptual narrative – without feeling at all cluttered or cumbersome.

Thus, proceedings flow through utopian pedal steel and synth-led taking-off and looking back (“Apeman, Spacemen”); affectionate echoes of the somnolent interplay of Pink Floyd within the longer passages of Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here (“Cybernetics Serendipity” and “Aquarius Rising”); twinkling and skittering jazz interluding (“Eight Million Miles High”); warm-hearted salutes to Brian Eno’s Apollo (“West of the Moon”); Cluster-meets-Kraftwerk robotics (“The Stars Below Us”); ambient extensions of In a Silent Way-era Miles Davis (“The Ghosts We Bring”); Morricone-does-cowboys-in-space-scores (“Further From Home”); and easy but not cheesy listening reimaginings of Air’s Moon Safari (the title track).

Undoubtedly an album well-suited to contented yet reflective weekend afternoon airings, Memories of Earth is delightfully comforting and imaginative audio food for thoughtful romantic star-gazers.

Similarly slipping into comforting yet decidedly more earthbound sensibilities, is Earth Trip, the third long-player from Rose City Band on Thrill Jockey. Carrying on from last year’s sprightlier and open-road readied Summerlong, we find Ripley Johnson and co. in a more contemplative cosmic Americana mindset, infused with psychedelically-tinged stay-at-home vibes.

Hence, elegantly drowsy connections are made between Bob Dylan’s domesticated New Morning, the sublime second side of Neil Young’s On the Beach and latter-day Sonic Boom (across “Silver Roses”, “In the Rain” and “Feel of Love”); sun-kissed hazy homages are made to the hirsute twanginess of The Byrds’ undervalued (Untitled) and The Band’s first three albums (“Lonely Places” and “Ramblin’ With the Day”); and the most lysergic strung-out moments of Ripley’s on/off time captaining Wooden Shjips are revisited with added Crazy Horse prowling (the finale of “Dawn Patrol”).

Whilst admittedly, Earth Trip is not the most eventful or groundbreaking collection in Ripley Johnson’s canon to date, inside and out of Rose City Band, its heady homestead charms will make for a fine enough summer hammock-slumbering soundtrack.

Taking a wholly different approach to lockdown-era studio self-immersion is the Bristol-based Lucy Gooch, with an EP-sized arrival on Fire Records in the form of Rain’s Break. A slightly more forthright sequel to Rushing, her equivalently short-form debut, released elsewhere in early-2020, this succinct yet stretched-out affair acts as a stirring slow burn showcase of a fledgling yet promising talent.

Forging links between vintage 4AD ethereality, the ambient-electro world and all-eras of shoegaze, through seams of synths and Gooch’s own multi-tracked tones, the five gathered tracks require some headphone-encased listening to soak up properly – but the rewards are there to be uncorked. Thus, across proceedings we’re treated to Cocteau Twins-meets-Julianna Barwick swirling radiance on the title-track; the symphonic spaciness of “It Brings Me Back to You”; the amniotic yet glitchy “Chained to a Woman”; the layered washes through “6AM”; and the rippled drones over “Ash and Orange”.

Whilst the sonic bathysphere-like journeying of Rain’s Break may take some patience to fully appreciate, as with Colleen’s still-fresh The Tunnel and the Clearing it’s satisfying to hear an entrancing voice and elliptical songcraft being implanted into such wide enveloping soundscapes. Definitely an emerging talent to keep watching…

Adrian
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