18 December 2016

RECOMMENDATION #163 - REST YOU SLEEPING GIANT

REST YOU SLEEPING GIANT - SPIRITS
cellar door 2016, edition of 25

"Rest You Sleeping Giant is Ethan Helfrich's attempt to create blissful and sleepy music. Spirits' sound is marked by a long and cold journey through a series of hardships. Its sound is markedly cold but soft and blissful at points. Each track was recorded using guitar, effects pedals, and tape loops on a Tascam 424." - REST YOU SLEEPING GIANT bandcamp

lush understated folk-tinted ambient drone, billowing choruses of shimmering round edged guitar tones stretching on toward infinity by way of delay, sustain and tape loops, juxtaposed with some ethereal bedroom folk balladry, delicate hazy sing-and-strum gently drifting along the surface of "om" like dronescapes or blissfully immersed in frippertronics meditations, with a moody deep space stargazing vibe forming radiant silver linings along the way - HELFRICH is as adept at subtle longform dynamics as he is concise "pop" expressions with two songs over eleven minutes and three under four here on SPIRITS, both an impressive display of range and coherency, perhaps inspired by the likes of GROUPER, TIM HECKER and BENOIT PIOULARD, elevating alongside crucial blogosphere favorites like BRAEYDEN JAE, CLOUDSOUND, EKIN FIL and WILLAMETTE, a last minute year end like minded list crasher ripe for the pickin