John Chantler - Still Light, Outside [1703 001]

A conceptual, cross-country release marks cat.no. 001 of John Chantler's very own label 1703 in August 2015. Based upon field recordings of the pipe organ at London's St. John-at-Hackney church in a four months period before relocating to Sweden where "Still Light, Outside" was finalized and heavily reprocessed at the renowned Stockholm-based EMS studios the four tracks on this nearly fourty minutes album are, despite being calm and only slowly evolving in structure, not necessarily recommended to the faint-hearted or those looking forward to experience floating, ruminant soundscapes. Instead, especially the title track resembles a droney feel whilst building up layers and layers of a dissonant, more Noize-related crescendo that never fully climaxes whilst the follow up "The Long Shadow Of Decline - Pt. I" fuses calm gurgling water'esque sounds with intense, constant and pretty unnerving, ear-piercing high frequency blips accompanied by short sci-fi tones and solemn, melancholia-infused string layers slowly unfolding after the first third of the track passes. "The Long Shadow Of Decline - Pt. II" is based on a solid foundation of buzzing, digital low frequencies evoking fond memories of more experimental releases on the long gone Audio.NL label before being covered by a pretty much unprocessed layer of organ dronage from which electrical noises, feedbacks and short circuit sounds seem to emerge throughout the further progress of the tune. Finally "The Long Shadow Of Decline - Pt. III" fuses calm Ambient beauty and clean, hyperdigital sounds well related to the once popular Clicks'n'Cuts genre to cause a strong and physically recognizable feeling of unrest and inner dislocation similar to listening to two TV shows at the same time - an interesting experience but a tough one to go through for a non-advanced listener for sure.