Moth Elecret - LiL [Mystery sea - 2007]LiL goes under the more active and not so deep form of ambient bracket & been surprising swift for the often drifting Mystery sea label type release. It’s all the work of Norwegian Stig Berg, who has already released an album under the name of R|A|A|N some years back. On offer eight fairly short tracks (for ambient music) mostly running from under ten to just over five minutes a piece. Each track seems to be built around manipulated source material such as; water, subterranean sounds and what could be distant machinery clunking and moving slowly away. He then seems to add in synth textures and possible peddles of some sort. Then he mixes it all together to give an organic and living feel to the material that morphs from tinkling almost rhythmic tones, to melodic revolving textures and dronescapes. Apparently the album was constructed from sounds recorded in sea fishing/ industrial areas from various locations around the world, it does capture the feeling of calm amongst great activity. I have to admit many of the pieces seem to have too much movement/ change in them, he doesn’t seem to be able to settle very well into constructing more strip down or long stretched-out textural dwells, he's always wanting to be pressing in the next layer of sound or harmonic element giving this often a quite muddled vibe. In places it almost brings to mind more ambient striped down psychedelic rock jams or minimal techno. So an album with some creative use of sound and texture mixing, and some interesting ideas and atmosphere at work, but sadly he never lets them stay long enough to develop or deepen. Roger Batty
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