The last Ishmael Cormack release I reviewed came to publishing a week or so back on Fluid Radio. This time, more from the artist, but not more of the same…
Fundamentally this next album is very good, very peaceful like the last. Totally unfettered, it plows along in the snow until it reaches a greener horizon underneath. Mood wise it’s generally expressing mixolydian clouds of fresh air, with an absorbing crust like perfumed fresh bread about the whole affair. Sitting around campsites in the outlands type of stuff. A camp fire head phase, as Boards Of Canada might say.
An example of this mood and density/character is “Looping Finch”, a track that simply drifts as if its wings have infinite fuel and its presence has love for the organic and electronic. It’s like magic. I did not compare Cormack to Jodi Cave’s “For Myria” album last time because that album came out 12 years ago and was a very low-key, unidentifiable gem in the electroacoustic treasure trove. But with an album (and it could be said “albums”) quality assurance, it seems right. Also because there’s very little music out there as infinitely wholesome in the general scene as this music. Though, “Fragile Existence”, a magnificent work by Margins on this site’s Fluid Audio label is also in the same vein.
This is not to detract from what is given this time. Because what is given, is not more of the same. This ability – to unsettle the listener, but not mess with their head – is one of the best case scenarios and shows artistic maturity as well as consistency. Ishmael Cormack has achieved many successes as well as making successive entries in his optimistic, sepia-tinted colouring of very “classical ambient”. Not drone, maybe, but very close to a succinct peace, and when we’re worn out by the outside’s fresh air, “Maple Finch” brings a positive comfort indoors to our speaker cones and ears.