Tuesday 7 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Cygnet Wings - Cygnet Wings EP (Self-Released)


Cygnet Wings

Cygnet Wings EP
DOWNLOAD

Eastern influenced modes abound on this beautiful, haunting, piece of work from one American, 23 year old Gainsville/Brooklyn migrator Dan Hall.  Completed with the help of a few friends, but ostensibly Cygnet Wings is all his own work it involves layers of violin and guitar with sparse ethereal vocals lullabyed over the top. Reminds me of Loscil as much as anything more orchestral, the feeling evokes is that similar desire to be hemetically sealed in, of emotional isolation, of rain on the window panes and internal greyness reflecting the overcast skies outside. The see-sawwing repeting motif of the first track glides deep into the centre of this musical headspace while the additional elements get to illustrate further details in the narrative.

The second piece, Thunder Peals is a barer and rawer acoustic guitar lament with both strings and vocals suitably muffled into a cosy warmth under flashes of lightning strike strokes of violin.  The third track and centre-piece is the Oriental figured Lark with trilling flourishes from the violen eliciting scenes of birdsong soundtracked tranquility. At over five minutes it is the longest track and is the most patient in revealing all its' charm and character; the violins not always hitting the perfect note producing a dissonance that serves a deliberate presence in defining the flow of the track. When the layered vocals and acoustic guitars come in the whole thing swells to impossibly enchanting proportions.  The two following tracks can;t hope to compete in terms of grandeur but they offer the same beguiling and affecting forms as the preceeding tracks.

An excellent, elegent, refined and accomplished EP that deserves an audience.







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