Poor Isa - Let's Drink The Sea And Dance [Aspen Edities 007]

Put on the circuit via the Itegem-based imprint Aspen Edities on May 24th, 2k19 is "Let's Drink The Sea And Dance", the first ever album by Poor Isa, a collaborational duo formed by the two Belgian artists Frederik Leroux and Ruben Machtelinckx. Presenting an array of nine brand new tracks here, all built on the foundation of combining woodblocks and prepared piano, the duo brings forth a very intimate, organic and tender approach to the creation of sound with warm, melancholic and inward-looking arrangements of ambient'ish drones in combination with sparse, yet complex rhythm signatures in the opening track "Oceanfuls" whereas the follow-up "Sill" seems to follow a twangier path with bit of cheeky, tumbling humour hidden in its minimalist arrangement whilst the intro of "The Sun At Two" even seems to border electroacoustic experiments before drifting off into a wonderful take on Score Noir musically. With "Elsewhere" we see Poor Isa revealing a slighty darker angle on their work, combining plucked banjo strings with an uneasy, slightly off-kilter background vibe hinting towards darker entities from worlds beyond our lurking just  outside our periphal vision, "Izu" pulls off a minimalist zen homage to what might be described as slightly Asian sound aesthetics before the "Seagarden" harks back to long, ambient'ish tones and overall beauty paired with a feel of maritime melancholia only familiar to those living by the sea or a big harbour for a reason. Furthermore "Noonstroom" and its spiralling, scraping rhythms build another bridge to the ghostly otherworld, channeling contorted communications from ghostly beings when played after midnight at full moon, "Shroud" sees both a curious humour and flickering unease fall together within one composition and the final "Sunday Lemons" are more of a tender, caressing experience for a closing than a sour or bitter goodbye. Beautiful stuff - recommended!

Album artwork on Instagram!