Bubblegum Cage III

Loscil – Endless Falls (Kranky) 2LP

February 27, 2010 at 12:57 pm 3 comments

Loscil - Endless Falls

The Work of Vancouver’s Loscil – aka sometime Destroyer drummer Scott Morgan – is all about incremental development. This applies at the micro level and the macro level. Each individual track pivots around Morgan gradually introducing a series of slow, dreamy loops – mainly chord washes, sub-bass detonations, and percussive clicks…

Morgan’s career as Loscil, meanwhile, has seen him building a cult fan-base across the span of a decade. If you’ve followed the series of albums he’s released on Kranky during this time, you might be forgiven for thinking they all sound pretty much the same. But compare the murky dub-techno of Triple Point to the twinkling bliss-out of Plume and you’ll see that a real musical progression has occurred somewhere along the line.

Endless Falls is the latest Loscil album and the first to be released on vinyl. It takes up where the last two albums (First Narrows and the aforementioned Plume) left off – displaying an increased emphasis on juxtaposing Morgan’s processed loops with live instruments.

The subtle difference here, on tracks like “Lake Orchard”, is an almost neoclassical feel, reminiscent of Max Richter’s work. This similarity is reinforced by an overall melancholy feel and a spoken-word appearance by Destroyer’s Dan Bejar (on “The Making of Grief Point”).

Endless Fall‘s immediately feels like the most ambitious Loscil album to date and it might just be the best. You can – and should – buy it once it gets released on March 1st.

Entry filed under: electronica, MP3s, reviews, Vancouver. Tags: electronica, MP3s, reviews, Vancouver.