Carrying on his prolific polymathic run of 2019, Oliver Cherer teams up with ISAN’s Robin Saville, for an idiosyncratic conceptual ambient outing
Although having put a little breathing space into his packed 2019 release schedule after the still-fresh and much-acclaimed I Feel Nothing Most Days LP (released under his own name) the artistically amorphous Oliver Cherer returns again already with borderline-haste via this collaborative release alongside ISAN’s Robin Saville. A substantially different beast, Sizewell is far removed from the aforementioned record’s gorgeously downcast songcraft, being far closer in spirit to 2010’s Ghost Stations album by Cherer’s on/off/on Dollboy alias. Whereas that conceptual construction explored the subterranean mysteries of the London Underground and Berlin’s U-Bahn, this thematic detour is far more of an above ground undertaking. Yet it is no less esoteric.
Under the spell of the eerie hums and foreboding architectural presence of the very real Sizewell nuclear power station and its surrounding wildlife on the Suffolk coast, very close to where Saville himself lives, the twosome have forged an ambient psychogeographical curio that also takes mutual inspiration from their separate musical CVs. Split into two twenty or so minute tracks as a cassette/digital release on the increasingly reliable Modern Aviation label, the duo seamlessly splice together field recordings and sounds exuded from their own extensive inventories of instrumentation, to make for a strangely mesmeric affair.
The opening “Sizewell A” sets the nature-meets-nuclear scene both serenely and spookily. Moving through various movements, we are taken through a travelogue of sampled seagulls, drones both real and synthesised, glistening percussion, pastoral guitar-picking and campfire ululations. Flipside “Sizewell B” follows similar structured-collaging routes, with tapings of wildlife, coastal waves and driving rain, burbling watery electronics, disorientating loops and mechanised beats leading things into a darker place overall.
Taken in one sitting, it’s hard not to feel slightly hypnotised by the peculiar conjoining of overlapping ideas and elemental sonics that make up Sizewell. Whilst it’s mainly only marketable to the pre-existing followers of its authors, the intoxicating cocktail of intimate tranquillity and looming trepidation is far from being a surplus spillage of creativity.
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