GM010 - Loscil - coast/range/arc - Glacial Movements Records - 2011
First Review
First and foremost, loscil is, and has always been, headphone music; any of Scott Morgan’s works should be listened to, enjoyed, and cherished with this in mind. Coast/Range/Arc should also be enjoyed with a simple caveat: do not look for a beat, you won’t find one. The Canadian sound artist’s most recent release, this time fittingly on Glacial Movements Records, is the follow-up to 2010′s preposterously stellar Endless Falls (which essentially functioned as a manual on how to craft a modern ambient record – incredible spoken-word performance by Daniel Bejar of Destroyer aside). However, rather than a continuation of the ebbing ambient-with-field-recordings mixture so soon after Endless Falls, loscil opts to drop the beats entirely and to build timeless soundscapes inspired by the coasts, mountain ranges, and arcing hills of the Pacific Northwest – and to great effect. Album opener “Black Tusk” travels through 10 minutes of pure ambient backdrops, ending with what sounds to be an imitation of cold Pacific winds. “Fromme” utilizes the low-note-drop in creating rhythm, for which loscil is consistently known, while “Névé,” one of the record’s highlights, yields an incredibly dark & isolated mood with just 8 minutes of expertly manipulated drone. Coast/Range/Arc closes on the majestic “Goat Mountain,” if drone/minimal ambient can be called at all stately. The varied moods shown through First Narrows, Plume, Submers, Endless Falls, and now Coast/Range/Arc show Scott Morgan to be fully capable of a range of ambient styles, but a few things remain the same: 1 hour of free time necessary, comfortable chair suggested, ‘cans required.
NOWLIKEPHOTOGRAPHS (album of the week)
Second Review
BOOMKAT
Three Review
‘Coast/Range/Arc’ opens things up with “Black Tusk”, a long drone piece with seemingly little movement. The song sounds like it was built around an organ played from behind a thick wall, and it’s amazing how emotive the track is from note one. It immediately takes the listener to a specific place, both melancholic and mysterious. Like most of the pieces on the album it has an almost glacial quality to it: thick, icy, ever-changing. That idea of mountains slowly changing in ways that are imperceptible is reflected very clearly in the music.
“Fromme” begins with the sound of water running in a stream. And while many artists use the sound of water in songs, this stream sounds hurried, almost violent. Again, it’s a fairly straightforward piece made up of field recordings and one or two primary synth-lines. The spare arrangement of the song is reflective of the approach used throughout the album. This song also introduces another common thread to the album: a synth-line taking the place of the absent beat, using an almost death-knell rhythm. This rhythm fills the void of missing beats but also adds to the sense of tension that fits so nicely with the idea of nature changing in epic but unknowable ways.
By the beginning of “n_v” the tone of the music has become much more threatening. The song fades into a thick layer of menacing drone, almost like waking up in an undercurrent. The source sounds used to create the song have an almost metallic and cold feel to them. The whole song feels barren and unrelenting. Again, the recurring approach to Morgan’s theme seems to be one of mystery and awe-inspiring beauty. No small feat for a musician to achieve, but even more amazing considering how Morgan has limited himself in the tools at his disposal to accomplish this.
“Brohm Ridge” and “Goat Mountain”, two thick drone pieces clocking in at more than 10 minutes apiece, finish things off. Both songs continue this path of menacing drones, as if the album has slowly evolved into something darker. By the album’s end the listener feels surrounded by this world of ice and mountains.
It’s always interesting to hear a musician refine their approach. It’s even more interesting when that musician strips away many of the resources that often define their work. Most of these songs consist of one to three different layers of instrumentation, most of which are nakedly audible. There is no trickery to the album, and yet it retains a sense of mystery through its narrative tone. ‘Range/coast/Arc’ is an important entry into the Loscil canon if for no other reason than the fact that it gives the listener insight into the fundamentals of what makes the man’s song writing work. Glitchy rhythms or not, Loscil still has the goods to reach his listener in very affecting ways. - Review by Brendan Moore for Fluid Radio
Four Review
Loscil’s music has always looked to the local for inspiration. His 2004 release, First Narrows (i.e. Lions Gate Bridge) was a kind of Autobahn for Vancouver (ie. a sonic travelogue akin to Kraftwerk’s 1974 LP of that name). 2006’s Plume was inspired by wind currents and 2010’s Endless Falls was an extended reflection of the grey and rain of Vancouver’s long winters…and occasionally a good portion of our summers.
Though we met up on his porch on an unusually warm and sunny day this May, this has been a particularly cold and wet spring, and so I began by asking him about the role of rain on Endless Falls.
SM: I think it’s a subconscious thing but it bubbles to the surface, obviously. With Endless Falls, rain is the key to the whole record. Not only do I use the actual sound of rain, but all the other sounds are processed using the sound of the rain, so in a way it constitutes the musical notes. The actual ambient sound around us becomes the ambient musical sound of the record itself. I like that idea. My little studio is in the back of the house and when it rains it’s very much a part of whatever I’m working on. That recording of actual rain on Endless Falls was made in my backyard so it’s like I’m giving listeners a small piece of the experience I had while I was working on the record.
MM: The new CD on the Italian Glacial Movements label (run by mountaineering devotee Alessandro Tedeschi) features a more static sound with seemingly fewer musical events taking place over the course of the disc’s six tracks, and each is named for a local mountain peak or ridge. You’re not a mountaineer like Alessandro but you are clearly inspired by the Pacific coastal range here.
SM: I’ve been to Black Tusk and Grouse, obviously. Part of it is going to those places, but another part of it is seeing it from afar, and I have a view from my office at work. I can see both The Lions and Grouse Mountain. Something that’s always fascinated me is the fact that we don’t think of them as dynamic. We think of them as very static. They’re fixtures and they seem the same every day, other than maybe being covered in snow (or not). But they are actually incredibly dynamic on a timescale we can’t perceive, and there’s something about that I like, that timelessness. Imagine writing music on that timescale, thinking in terms of millions of years. There’s something fascinating about that, and it’s part of what I’m trying to create with ambient music—the sense of a timescale that’s outside of real time, outside of our daily experience of time, which is obviously much faster.
MM: The only way to really solve this one would be with generative music, that which employs randomizing systems to create an endless, non-repeating piece of music using recombinant and regenerating sound sources. Unfortunately it’s hard to do that with the limitations of the CD.
SM: I like the sense that each one of those pieces on coast / range / arc feels like it’s been cut off at the beginning and the end, that it could be much, much longer, and that they are just little snippets, like seeing just a hint of the horizon, it’s meant to seem so much more infinite.
MM: Almost like a core sample, or ice core sample. Or if you’re talking about our relationship to the local mountains, most urban dwellers know them only through “view corridors.” Have you worked with generative systems?
SM: Yeah. I’ve done some generative stuff, but it’s always towards a seed of an idea rather than an installation-type thing where you could just turn it on, walk away and leave it running. I’ll use generative processes to make a little unit of sound and I’ll take it out and apply structure after the fact. But I do like the idea of creating a generative piece that could just be left on forever.
MM: If there’s the technology around and maintained to see it through!
SM: Wind chimes
are still the best generators, the best generative music ever written!
But I’m born and raised here, so I feel like the mountains are part of
me in the sense that they form my own backdrop and it finds its way into
my music. There’s something about a mountain landscape when you’re off
hiking in the woods. There’s the solitude, an emotional connection and
the fact of being alone. We’re lucky we’re close to the mountains, the
ocean, the forest and the water. Those things are always on my mind in
some weird way.
MM: In some form, these things are universal even if not directly experienced. I think of some of the music by Cluster, Popol Vuh, Harold Budd and others, and how it’s so utterly fitting beyond the pastoral or desolate environs of its creation. Two of Ralph Towner’s compositions inspired the official naming of craters on the moon!
SM: There are certainly some universal things. Space has played a very influential role in a lot of different music. I think it’s about that individual [composer] wondering what’s out there, what are we all about, and the need to express something we can’t put into words. So people unite around something like space as a metaphor for a search for meaning, and landscape functions pretty similarly to that. If I lived in the desert would it have the same influence on me, play the same role in the music that the mountains, ocean and the rain do? You can’t really know until you move to the desert, I guess.
MM: Musicians like Austria’s Fennesz and Germany’s Alva Noto are producing music that, in addition to being created from field recordings and/or being influenced by landscape, seems to pull sound from the invisible thickness of electronic signal-suffused air. What’s next for you after mountain ranges?
SM: Actually, I just curated a new record with the theme “the world without us” (after Alan Weisman’s book of the same name, which details the hypothetical impact on the planet of sudden human disappearance and, more importantly, the abandonment of our myriad systems of survival and energy generation). Chris Herbert contributed a piece that was all about radio waves and what would linger beyond, like snatching remnants out of the air, decaying electronic signals that might still be hanging around. —Mark Mushet
Five Review
Con esta carta de presentación, así como con una portada que señala con mucha claridad por dónde van los tiros, el disco ya desde el inicio deja claro que en este viaje por las montañas del noroeste del Pacífico, un paisaje solitario poblado de glaciares, cascadas, valles, laderas, lagos helados y vistas monumentales en frontal divergencia con el mundanal ruido de las grandes ciudades, no hay lugar para los ritmos, las melodías, los instrumentos o los arreglos. Aquí asistimos, en realidad, a una nueva sesión de hipnosis ambient en la que las grabaciones de campo y los drones minimalistas llevan la voz cantante, todo planteado desde un prisma de abstracción y pureza dignas de mención y aplauso. Si uno llega a imaginarse a sí mismo deambulando por la inmensidad de un glaciar, es improbable pensar en una banda sonora más certera, exigente y fiel que la que propone Morgan en este disco.
Cincuenta y cinco minutos para olvidarse del mundo, odisea introspectiva en luminoso y cegador blanco, apología furibunda de la soledad y el recogimiento, “Coast/ Range/ Arc” es un álbum hecho a medida para los talibanes del ambient y el aislacionismo. De impecable y bellísima factura, encuentra su razón de ser en la invocación paisajística y en la introspección emocional del oyente, se mantiene muy fiel a la idiosincrasia del sello, conserva los rasgos expresivos del Loscil más asceta y devuelve crédito y consistencia a una microescena últimamente superada por otras apuestas más versátiles y epidérmicas del circuito ambient. - Julio Pardo
Six Review
ROCKERILLA (Summer 2011)
Seven Review
Though Scott Morgan has issued much of his Loscil material on the
Chicago-based kranky label, Glacial Movements would seem to be a much
more natural home for the electronic composer. Both the artist and label,
in this case, favour restraint over excess in their productions and both
bring a real-world or environmental dimension to their works (Submers
perhaps the clearest example in Loscil's case, given that all nine of
its tracks are named after submarines). At the very least, the change of
label locale has witnessed a notable change in the Loscil sound, with
Morgan scaling his approach back even further beyond its normally
understated presentation to a style that invites even more of an
isolationist ambient characterization. On Coast/Range/Arc, beats are
absent altogether in a collection that sees its six settings stripped
down to their elemental essence. The pieces are long-form in design,
with three tipping past the ten-minute mark, and are ideally experienced
as headphones listening material.
The material takes its inspiration from the coastal mountains of the
Pacific Northwest (a region no doubt familiar to the Vancouver, BC-based
Morgan), whose grandeur is bolstered by the presence of glaciers, lakes,
waterfalls, and canyons. It's not hard to hear a parallel between the
slow-motion developments within Morgan's pieces and the shifts that
occur imperceptibly in natural phenomena. Along those lines, the opener
“Black Tusk” swells gradually into an immense drone of subtly modulating
character that's grounded by uninterrupted swathes of organ-like flow
and smothered in enigmatic textures of flutter, ripple, and static. Its
huge blocks of sound are hardly unchanging, however; close listening
reveals, for example, the subliminal presence of a faint whistling sound
that arises during the piece's final moments. In contrast to the
monolithic aura of the opening piece, “Fromme” frames ambient washes and
a chugging synth pattern with the animated burble of water. Morgan
drapes synthetic string tones across “Stave Peak” in sparse manner, with
ambient breaths audible in the spaces separating the strings. Unlike the
warmth exuded by the strings in “Stave Peak,” “Névé” paints a more
threatening picture, with the faint wailing of a choir seemingly audible
at the center of the cavernous vortex sculpted by Morgan. That human
element may be the imagined outgrowth of a hallucination but the track's
mystery-laden material is tailor-made for engendering such flights of
fancy. “Brohm Ridge” comes across like the relatively peaceful aftermath
of the threat posed by “Névé,” even if the sheets of black ice and dark,
muffled tones that ebb and flow throughout “Brohm Ridge” ooze a
particular menace of their own. The muffled horn tones extending through
“Goat Mountain” suggest the grandiose vistas of Wagner or Richard
Strauss (the latter's Eine Alpensinfonie [An Alpine Symphony], for
example). Each of Coast/Range/Arc's settings creates the impression of
having been born in a different geographical place with different
natural elements—ice, wind, water, for instance—consecutive points of
emphasis, and in terms of compositional development, the tracks are some
of the most epic Morgan has released. Among other things, he draws the
listener's attention to the myriad array of impressions we experience in
our encounters with the natural world, with everything from awe and
rapture to terror part of the kaleidoscopic mix.
August 2011
Eight Review
Nineth Review
Dopo le esperienze, tra gli altri, di Rapoon e Lull, è adesso la volta del canadese Scott Morgan aka Loscil, che dopo le piogge incessanti che ne hanno ispirato l'ultimo, splendido, "Endless Falls", non si è discostato più di tanto dall'osservazione della natura circostante alla sua Vancouver, addentrandosi nell'impervia zona costiera del Pacific North-West, costellata da laghi, cascate e canyon, creati e modellati dal ghiaccio, alla ricerca di suoni e suggestioni adeguate al concept tematico, oggetto dell'esplorazione sonora di tutte le uscite del catalogo Glacial Movements.
I cinquantacinque minuti di "Coast/Range/Arc" racchiudono tuttavia una visione in un certo senso "domestica" e più prossima dell'isolazionismo ambientale, che rende emblematico come per trovare le espressioni più aliene e selvagge della natura non sia necessario recarsi in distanti luoghi inospitali, poiché in alcune zone del pianeta scenari mozzafiato e ghiacci perenni possono trovarsi anche a breve distanza da metropoli moderne.
Il forte legame geografico di "Coast/Range/Arc" viene tuttavia tradotto in scenari ai quali la presenza dell'elemento umano è quasi estranea, certamente superflua di fronte alla maestosità dei luoghi e a immagini cristallizzate in una quiete ibernata ma, al solito, vitalissima.
Accantonate per l'occasione le cadenze dub e le pulsazioni elettroniche di "Endless Falls", Morgan disegna sei sinfonie ambientali, modulate sul crinale tra iterazione e persistenza, senza tuttavia rinunciare ad abbracci armonici dalle sembianze quasi orchestrali, né alle vibrazioni sfrigolanti che catturano l'incessante processo di fenditura, diluizione e rigenerazione del ghiaccio. A quest'ultima categoria di suoni è improntata l'iniziale "Black Tusk", la cui coltre ipnotica si svolge uniforme su un substrato più ruvido, puntellato da soffi al tempo stesso tenebrosi ed eterei.
L'ispessimento quasi "fisico" che contrassegna la prima parte del lavoro si percepisce anche nella varietà di riflessi liquidi di "Fromme", mentre i due brani centrali si sciolgono in più brevi partiture, che, tra echi profondi e saturazioni austere, innalzano cattedrali di suono ibernato, statico ma pronto a dileguarsi in vaporose astrazioni.
I due più lunghi brani finali (entrambi oltre i dieci minuti di durata) traducono invece tale impalpabile orchestralità in trame sonore granulose, le cui increspature e correnti spettrali fungono da corollario a una grandiosità documentarista, non priva di una certa persistente tensione di fondo.
Ben congegnato e altrettanto accuratamente realizzato, "Coast/Range/Arc" lascia riaffiorare le profondità ambientali già espresse da Scott Morgan in album quali "Submers" e "Plume", confermando al contempo il graduale processo di affrancamento delle produzioni Glacial Movements dai plumbei cliché espressivi spesso connaturati alla declinazione isolazionista della musica ambientale.
Ancora una volta, sotto l'apparente immobilità delle superfici ghiacciate, ci sono vita, suono e movimento; Morgan li ha colti, restituendoli condensati in un universo sonoro in fragile ma perfetto equilibrio.
Tenth Review
has earned their status when it comes to quality standards. In the past, they released albums by Rapoon, Lull, BVDUB, Francisco Lopez (among others) - the future will see new releases by BVDUB. Pjusk and Thomas Köner.
Like the name suggests,
Glacial Movements
chooses
to release albums that thematically deal with vast, deserted
(and mostly cold) landscapes:
"Places that man has forgotten...icy landscapes...fields of
flowers covered eternally with ice... Icebergs colliding amongst
themselves..." "Glacial Movements is a label born to describe
and spread these thoughts/images through sound."
Knowing this, it is no
surprise that Glacial Movements is the label to
release Loscil's latest release, "Coast/Range/Arc
".
It is a perfect match.
In previous releases (most
of them released on
Kranky
),
Canadian composer Scott 'Loscil' Morgan
has proven to be able to transfer desolate territories into
haunting soundscapes. His ability "to write environmental
weavings which revolve around a well-defined subject" has
made him one of the most important performers in what could be
called 'environmental isolationist ambient'.
"Coast/Range/Arc
"
refers to the
coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest
,
studded with glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons and epic views.
"Mountains are hardly
static - in fact they are dynamic on a time scale beyond the
human experience. They grow, buckle, twist, erupt and erode at
an epic pace. The Coast Range Arc is filled with such mountains
and valleys, their dynamics nearly imperceptible. They evoke awe
and a connection to an imperceptible past. They are constantly
changing, yet represent such a seemingly stoic fixture in our
relatively short lives."
A beautiful description indeed, and one that fits the
mountains as well as the seemingly stoic music on this
album, which progresses with nature's inevitability.
That inevitabilty may be
threatening at times, but it is also comforting, since it's the
way nature's supposed to be - and way beyond human control.
In that way I always find it remarkable that this kind of music
is mostly described in terms like 'desolate' and 'cold' - while
for me it also transcends calm and timeless peacefulness
Eleventh Review
Canadian composer Scott Morgan has over a decade of operations situated loscil as a leading name in ambient electronica. Over the course of several works, he's found synergies between melody, motion and mood, operating at a dub-inflected remove. A thematic constant has been environmental, from Triple Point's thermodynamic principles to Submers's submariner big blue. Following on, First Narrows was similarly water-borne but more instrumentally opened out, Plume used the expanded palette to foreground other timbres and touch on more ambivalent terrain, while rain seeped through the whole of Endless Falls (2010). This album takes its expressive cue from the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
This aspect of the artist
is a perfect fit with the
Glacial Movements theme of glacial expanse and isolationist
inclination. Glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, widescreen blue vistas,
timeless elevations and boundless skies are easily evoked by
Morgan's signature stretches of hazy ambience. Rather than a
continuation of the ebb-flow ambient electronica of Endless
Falls, coast/range/arc eschews clipped rhythms
and bass pulse in favour of tempo-depleted soundscapes. “black
tusk” sonographically travels through 10 minutes of such
backdrops, ending with what sounds an imitation of cold Pacific
winds. Tracks such as “fromme”
and “stave
peak” are gorgeous tranquil zones of lone drone tone, while
the standout “névé”
basks darkly in a bleak and isolated mood. A meditative calm
prevails, but, like Thomas Köner (see
last October's fn), Morgan conveys a metaphysical sense of
some ineffable mysterious presence within the ice and frozen
tundra. With the passage through, the mood darkens considerably,
building into a thicker layer of tonemass - barren and
unyielding. Morgan ramps up the theme of mystery and awe with
more ominous drone paths over “Brohm Ridge” and “Goat Mountain,”
the listener loomed over by a full evocation of a towering
ice-bound mountain range.
Twelve Review
Thirteen Review
Glacial Movements est un label dont la thématique est de proposer des disques inspirés par des territoires inaltérés voire austères à toute forme de vie humaine. Et froids, surtout.Scott Morgan, résidant à Vancouver (où justement on doit bien se les geler je pense) et immense créateur d’ambiances sonores contemplatives s’est imprégné du concept et ne pouvait pas mieux l’illustrer. Coast / Range / Arc voit Loscil renouer avec les drones dans leur expression la plus minimaliste qui soit.La désolation des espaces glacés qu’il retranscrit dans cet album est particulièrement touchante. Le charme aérien de Black Tusk et Fromme, les 2 morceaux d’ouverture, se transforme au fil des 4 compositions suivantes en une profonde et sombre contemplation méditative.
Fourteen Review
Across six tracks Morgan cultivates a pretty consistent sound, meshing sparse, pure droning passages with varying dynamics and compositional structures. The opening "Black Tusk," for example, is heavily focused on deep, spacious tones that seemingly stretch out forever. The slow changes and undulations are balanced by subtle sheets of static that continue throughout, like cold winds kicking up snow and blowing it about.
Instead of static, recordings of rushing water are paired with thick tones on "Fromme," mixing the heavy, monolithic textures with purely natural sounds before both cease, allowing in a tremolo-laden passage of sound and deep heavy sub-bass pulses that shake everything around.
The remaining pieces focus more on the textural passages and dense tones and less on the noisier elements heard on "Black Tusk." The constantly shifting structure of "Stave Peak" is initially a series of swelling tones, almost like trumpets producing the outbursts. As the track goes on, the loud parts get louder and heavier, and the quiet parts no longer become as quiet, slowly building into a thick roar.
"Névé" and "Brohm Ridge" feature prominent bell-like tones, stretched out to become soaring passages of echoes and reverberations. The former conjures images of a winter's night, cold and becoming colder, the layers becoming more pronounced and forceful into almost a menacing intensity. The latter carefully ebbs and flows, shifting from sparse tones to dramatic outbursts with a cinematic flair, consistently balancing big flourishes with delicate moments.
Each composition on Coast/Range/Arc has its own distinctive presence, but all fit nicely together in an icy, yet compelling work. While there isn't a lot of warmth to be had here, the spacious drones and massive, heavy layers of sound still make it quite an inviting work.
Fifteen Review
Stavolta tocca al canadese Scott Morgan, nei panni del suo progetto principale Loscil, cimentarsi con le tematiche ipotermico-naturalistiche della nostrana Glacial Movements, etichetta che ha ormai raggiunto un'importanza internazionale di primo livello. Già abituato a musicare tematiche legate ad eventi naturali, Scott mostra tutte le sue qualità compositive in questo album, ispirato dai panorami delle catene montuose che si ergono lungo la costa ovest del Canada, zona segnata dalle necessarie temperature basse, ma anche da una singolare varietà morfologica. "Coast/Range/Arc" è la colonna sonora di tali lande, strutturata attraverso sei compatti brani, sempre uniformemente gelidi, fatti di cambiamenti lenti, e basati su drones, temi di sintetizzatori e qualche impercettibile rumore. Le linee sonore stratificate assumono spesso le sembianze di venti para-melodici che battono il territorio, oppure di onde in pacato movimento. I toni sfociano a volte in un'intensità quasi sinfonica, che si sforza - con grandi risultati - di celebrare una maestosità che l'ascoltatore può solo immaginare. Grazie ai suoni sembrano infatti prendere vita i sussurri di quella natura che da sempre la label di Alessandro Tedeschi ha cercato di fotografare come immanente ed eterna, e che Morgan interpreta in modo eccellente, lasciandosi (e lasciandoci) trasportare in uno status superiore. È ormai normale fare riferimento alla Glacial Movements se si vuole ascoltare un album ambient dai toni freddi ed intimisti: Loscil ci consegna uno dei capitoli migliori, confermando la sua grande capacità di dipingere orizzonti sterminati con il solo ausilio sonoro. Imperdibile per chi ama questo genere. Michele Viali
Sixteen Review
“Brohm Ridge” is the best of the six tracks on offer, changing regularly in an almost atomized manner during its 11 minute length and by the time they’ve travelled through it, the listener is somewhere completely different. Despite none of the other tracks really being a great deal different in style, there’s enough here to satisfy any fan of both Morgan’s and the genre itself. If you can put aside any pre-baked assumptions about the relative lack of ambition in ambient music today, then this is as good as you’ll hear in 2011. - Toby Frith
Seventeen Review
Eighteen Review
Loscil is the project of the prolific Scott Morgan, who resides in Canada and has released a total of 8 albums so far (not counting the “Versions” EP and a net release of four tracks). Tracks of his have appeared in documentaries, as well as the computer game Osmos. An interesting detail is that the name Loscil is an abbreviation for “looping oscillator”, a function of the audio programming language Csound – this is where my diatribe in computer programming sadly stumbles in the harsh reality of my ignorance, and the trail grows cold – those who wish to follow it further must do it alone. Scott’s first label release, “Triple Point” (2001) on the experimental label Kranky, was the beginning of his focus on concept albums, mainly music that constitutes a continuous entity, revolving around a particular subject. “Triple Point” was based on thermodynamic principles, “Submers” is a collection of tracks each representing a historic submarine, while “First Narrows” is based on Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge, particularly “the first gap to the entrance of the Burrard Inlet ”, quoting from the Kranky website.
“Coast Range Arc” is released on the wonderfully tasteful Glacial Movements label, which has accustomed us to exceptional minimal releases. Its perspective is founded in the natural landscape of the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, “studded with glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons and epic views. The majestic ranges form a striking mountain landscape. These tracks explore the timelessness of mountainous elevations; oxygen deprived and surrounded by boundless skies. Mountains are hardly static – in fact they are dynamic on a time scale beyond the human experience. They grow, buckle, twist, erupt and erode at an epic pace. The Coast Range Arc is filled with such mountains and valleys, their dynamics nearly imperceptible. They evoke awe and a connection to an imperceptible past. They are constantly changing, yet represent such a seemingly stoic fixture in our relatively short lives”. The idea and atmosphere fit perfectly in the label known for its cold ambient releases.
Each track bears the name of a specific mountain, ridge or area, and is studied to convey not just its character, but participation in the event itself. When you close your eyes and lose yourself to the music, you can actually feel the cold winds whispering in your ear, and hear your footsteps in the snow. The suggestion of the fluidity of the landscape’s dynamics given in the description above, as well as the difference of the effects of time on humans and on nature, is evident. Everything flows, nothing is constant. Yet for a being with such a short life-span as ours, nature appears constant and unchangeable. Contact with this majestic outpost forces us to come to terms with our finite existence, but also provides us with the opportunity to disconnect from everyday trivialities and tune in to a different wavelength. To become one with nature and immerse ourselves in the freshness, the clearness and brilliance of the ice, snow and flowing streams.
This is pure, cold ambient at its best. The tracks range from low-key drones to the sound of running waters in my favourite track of the album, “Fromme”, to mellow synth ambient, resounding high-pitched drones and menacing cold ambient atmospheres. Faithful to the aesthetics of an abstract minimalism, Loscil never fails to maintain the temperature, vibe and imagery of the landscape. The final track, “Goat Mountain” transmits a sense of attainment and inner peace, the adventure having finally been completed. Rhythmic drones announce the ritual of the unison of the human with the divine. As it is impossible to separate one part of this experience from the other, if you had actually climbed these mountains, so it is impossible to deal with the tracks of this album separately. One cannot exist without the others, ripped apart from the general concept. I will differ from a reviewer I read in the label’s website and say that this album can be enjoyed not only on headphones but also played in your stereo system, as the music fills the space with its lucid, bright, icy ambience. It is also excellent meditation music. Whichever method you choose you are sure to be affected by it, and to end up being grateful for the ride.
Nineteen Review
No, you aren’t looking at a mislabeled John Luther Adams compilation. Loscil, the ambient/drone project of Vancouver’s Scott Morgan, has long aimed for unity between music and artwork. Plume (2006) opened with an image of an isolated smokestack, and through a series of winding, pulsing pieces evoked the concepts that arise when viewing industry from a distance: a stark mindset somewhere between alienation and boundless yearning. Submers, four years Plume‘s prior, followed a similar pattern, with music and artwork both centered around a nautical theme. And here, for coast/range/arc, the artwork features an endless winter landscape, with several of the seven pieces named for locations in British Columbia.
What Morgan is after here is something much more restrained than on Loscil’s previous full-length, 2010’s Endless Falls. That album had an intimate scope, but also tweaked Morgan’s formula somewhat, not to mention a guest appearance from Dan Bejar. (Morgan has been known to play drums in Destroyer ) Here, there’s a steadiness, a greater reliance upon drones and evocation of the vastness of the spaces he’s invoking. It’s not just the cover artwork that suggests Adams’s body of work, after all.
“Stave Peak” has a minimalist’s bliss that recalls the Bang on a Can Ensemble’s recording of Music For Airports, while the climax of “Fromme” practically shimmers. These seven pieces, however, take some time to unfold; “Stave Peak,” at six and a half minutes, is the shortest. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with developing music subtly, several of the pieces run dangerously close to passing by the listener without ever grabbing their attention.
Not all of them, however. “Névé” hearkens back to the sound of Plume, with just a hint of static glitchery in the mix and a haunting suggestion of a melody. If Loscil is invoking a landscape here, it’s a particularly cold one (The title refers to a particular type of snow.) And the sonorous drone of “Goat Mountain” is entirely massive, a booming suggestion of something massive. For the 10 and a half minutes of its duration, it suggests a middle ground between Christian Fennesz and Sunn 0))) -- and represents a solid and compelling expansion of Loscil’s sound. - By Tobias Carroll
Twenty Review
Twenty-one Review
Rapoon, Lull, Francisco Lopez e
ora Loscil: ancora una volta Alessandro Tedeschi,
l'uomo dietro a Glacial Movements, ha convinto un
pezzetto di storia dell'ambient a sposare il proprio
suono con l'immaginario statico e bianco della sua
etichetta.Scott Morgan/Loscil, da Vancouver, è una
firma della Kranky di Chicago, oltre che il
batterista dei Destroyer di Dan Bejar. Coast/range/arc
prende le mosse dal paesaggio maestoso che Scott
Morgan può osservare nel suo paese, fatto di
montagne lungo la costa, laghi e fiordi: la prima
traccia, ad esempio, prende il nome dal vulcano
spento che lì si trova, il Black Tusk (come la band
su Relapse, sì, ma c’era prima lui). Rispetto al
predecessore Endless Falls le differenze sono nette,
perché le pulsazioni di basso sono quasi del tutto
assenti, dato che o si fanno drone o divengono
isolati momenti in cui sulla superficie tranquilla
della musica si forma una piccola onda. Questo non
vuol dire che coast/range/arc sia monotono, dato che
Scott è stato capace creare situazione diverse per
ogni traccia: ci sono le atmosfere roach-iane in
“Black Tusk”, gli strumenti ad arco come sorgente
sonora da plasmare in una commovente “Stave Peak”,
il dark ambient di “Névé” e la soundtrack per un
thriller soprannaturale in “Brohm Ridge”.
Senza accezioni negative: un buon lavoro di genere.
Twenty-two Review
In previous releases (most of them on Kranky), Canadian composer Scott Morgan has proven to be able to transfer desolate territories into haunting soundscapes. His ability “to write environmental weavings which revolve around a well-defined subject” has made him one of the most important performers in what could be called ‘environmental isolationist ambient’. “Coast/ Range/ Arc ” refers to the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, studded with glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons and epic views.
“Mountains are hardly static – in fact they are dynamic on a time scale beyond the human experience. They grow, buckle, twist, erupt and erode at an epic pace. The ‘Coast/ Range/ Arc‘ is filled with such mountains and valleys, their dynamics nearly imperceptible. They evoke awe and a connection to an imperceptible past. They are constantly changing, yet represent such a seemingly stoic fixture in our relatively short lives.”
A beautiful description indeed, and one that fits the mountains as well as the seemingly stoic music on this album, which progresses with nature’s inevitability. That inevitability may be threatening at times, but it is also comforting, since it’s the way nature’s supposed to be – and way beyond human control. In that way I always find it remarkable that this kind of music is mostly described in terms like ‘desolate’ and ‘cold’ – while for me it also transcends calm and timeless peacefulness.
Twenty-three Review
Tipicità in casa
Glacial Movements vuol dire compattezza intorno
ad un tema che nello specifico è l’‘Artico, i
mille colori rifratti del permafrost, delle
montagne di ghiaccio, apparentemente bianche; un
candore fatto di piccole rifrazioni della luce
che se abbagliata dal sole acceca come
un’‘immagine sacra.
Non è blasfemo associare al ghiaccio una
divinità algida, pura come la coltre quindi
feroce nel negare alternative di sopravvivenza.
L’‘Artico è il viaggio quasi per eccellenza:
un’‘ideale classifica vedrebbe Napapiri tra le
prime posizioni del viaggio ideale, perché?
Perché estremo e non solo nelle temperature,
nell’‘abbaglio luminoso, nella pericolosità
intrinseca; sommo nel fondere l’‘io cosciente
con l’‘io trascendente, la solitudine che
diventa meditazione ed il raccoglimento, quasi
sempre,porta verso gli Dei perché l’‘Artico in
solitudine come nell’‘Oceano da la medesima
sensazione all’‘uomo di essere una minuscola,
insignificante particella nel contesto globale.
Però l’‘uomo ragiona e si offre agli Dei, a Dio,
per divenire un tramite, anche componendo la
musica: ora è il turno del canadese Loscil e
delle sue tracce dedicate al grande Nord.
Una carriera iniziata nel 1999 da parte di Scott
Morgan, che oggi, nella sua ricerca, si incontra
con i temi di Glacial Movement, li mette a
disposizione di chi voglia identificare un
percorso comune e condividerne le aspettative,
le immutabili, eterne, stupefacenti e candidi
incanti apparentemente puerili.Sei tracce
dedicate al grande Nord ma quale?
Quello che guarda verso lo stretto di Bering ma
non come ponte culturale ma come tramite per
l’‘isolazionismo meditativo da cui far nascere
il suono: “Black Tusk” è l’‘inizio cupo e
statico di un album che in questa veste si
chiude con “Goat Mountain”.In mezzo c’‘è la
distesa di neve irrorata dallo scrosciare
squillante dell’‘acqua in “Fromme”, un disgelo
segnato da vibrazioni, ondulazioni sonore, una
tela ora increspata dal Grande Artista celeste.
Il momento emotivamente più eccelso è subito
prima del finale: “Brohm Ridge” ha il sentore di
un organo, una sonorità ora di ambient mistico,
un omaggio agli Dei adorati tra i ghiacci, agli
Asi come alle potenze divine Inuit, su tutte
Sena cui omaggiare una preda prima della morte.
Il brano innalza il suono fino alle cupole di
cristallo, poi tornerà la stasi, la
stratificazione del suono, ma ora l’‘oblio deve
cessare anche solo per un istante, il tempo di
una traccia sonora scritta per evocare,
invocare, ammirati.
E’ credibile Loscil nel creare un suono per
quella terra, la sua, Glacial Movement procede
nella sua logica tematica anche nella cover di
nuovo del grande fotografo nordico Bjarne
Riesto, una label compatta come il ghiaccio,
lucente come la neve, non così fredda però…
Twenty-four Review
IL MUCCHIO nr.686
Twenty-five Review
Loscil has
completed his next full-length, entitled Coast/Arc/Range.
Known to his friends as Scott Morgan, Loscil
specializes in electronic ambient music with a touch
of melancholy, a style he's developed on records for
Kranky and Ghostly International among others.
Several of the Canadian artist's releases so far
have been strictly topical, such as 2002's
Submers, on which every track was named after a
famous submarine. His next one takes inspiration
from the Coast Arc Range, a "volcanic arc system"
that stretches from Washington state through British
Colombia. It's a theme that's well suited to
Glacial Movements Records, a geology-obsessed
Italian label whose past releases include Bvdub's
latest album, The Art of Dying Alone.
Twenty-six Review
Following the release of last year's Endless Falls LP, Canadian ambient composer Scott Morgan (a.k.a. Loscil) has prepped his seventh full-length, a six-track record called Coast/Range/Arc. The album will drop next month via Glacial Movements, and is said to be "centered around the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, studded with glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons, and epic views." Before it's available, you can check out the artwork and tracklist for Loscil's Coast/Range/Arc below
Twenty-seven Review
The album is called Coast/Range/Arc and is the seventh Loscil album in total. A press release explains that the record is "centered around the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, studded with glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons, and epic views."
While Glacial Movements lists April 2011 as the release date, XLR8R reports that the album is likely due out in May as a CD digipak. In the meantime, you can grab downloads of three album tracks, here.
Twenty-eight Review
Gently opening with a slow fade is
‘Black Tusk’, and from the outset, Loscil (Scott Morgan) lays his
intentions out on the table for all to see. This edition is focused on
the coastal mountains of the North American pacific north-west, a region
of inspiration for countless artists, namely David Lynch and his Twin
Peaks, more recently Rafael Anton Irisarri on his superb ‘The North
Bend’. Most works inspired by the region have the same feel about them:
a slow moving majestic unfolding of time, sometime gloomy, but always
beautiful
Morgan is a composer of patience, allowing each piece to evolve on it’s
own, all at almost glacial place. Aforementioned 10 minute opener ‘Black
Tusk’ is clear evidence of this. Enormous synth pads roll slower than
clouds, but in the same way, billowing, swelling, dropping. A muted flow
of water, perhaps a melting glacier, runs through ‘Fromme’, as bass
drops pervade quietly in the background, a 4/4 beat at 6bpm. Fan like
synths blow across the surface. ‘Stave Peak’ is as majestic as the name
implies. Reverential tones echo out into silence, evoking huge spaces,
as other synths gradually build and fall underneath. This is like flying
over a spectacular mountain vista, and easily creates this picture in
your mind. ‘Neve’ is all ominous notes and atmospheres, calling to mind
chasms and dark forgotten valleys. ‘Brohm Ridge’ is truly a journey,
starting in the sun on the spine of a ridge, before slowly slipping off
the side over a cliff to a dark valley, before perilously climbing out
to the summit. Closer ‘Goat Mountain’ is a muted organ vista, standing
at the foot of a fog enshrouded mountain and staring in awe for 10:31.
For music that moves at such a pace, it is somehow still very compelling,
owing largely to your own imagination. Truly a work of stasis, and a
masterwork of disciplined patience. To hell with grass: listening to
this album is akin to watching mountains grow. Epic stuff.
Nick Giles
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Twenty-nine Review
NOISE MAGAZINE nr.122
Thirty Review
Oggi Loscil, reduce dal successo di "Endless Falls", rimane ancorato all'onda di un puro sound drone/minimal ambient, alla ricerca di spazi inesplorati e del linguaggio della natura, del resto come tutte le produzioni della Glacial Movements.
In "Coast/Range/Arc", infatti, ci addentriamo in una foresta sonora in cui vivono luoghi e scenari incontaminati, l'esplorazione diviene l'elemento essenziale. I paesaggi della sua terra nativa, come le magiche coste del Pacifico, offrono grande ispirazione ed inevitabilmente ci ritroviamo in un'isolazionismo ambientale e in quei movimenti glaciali propri di tali esperimenti sonori.
E' importante scoprire quella parte di universo a noi sconosciuta.."Coast/Range/Arc" è un buon inizio!
Thirty-one Review
ROCK A ROLLA
Thirty-two Review
In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey,
the astronauts encounter a cryptic monolith to an ambient score of eerie
vocal and instrumental sounds that provoke a feeling of fearful urgency
and awe. While that image is your mind, now subtract the voices and the
urgency and instead include drones, static, and some natural sounds that
last for up to 10 minutes at a time and vary only ever so slightly. You
are now listening to Loscil’s Coast/Range/Arc. Loscil albums tend to
have themes, and this one is supposed to be “the coastal mountains of
the Pacific Northwest.” Well, Loscil’s mastermind, Scott Morgan
definitely captured the timelessness and the agonizingly slow evolution
of the landscape. It’s almost as if, through his compositions, he’s
managed to take time and stretch every second into infinity, turning
every breath into a painful wait until the next inhale.
Coast/Range/Arc is dull and difficult to listen to. Minimal, though
intricately complex, it is the type of audio art that 98% of the
audience won’t understand and 2% will think is brilliant. With constant
drones and limited variation, it really only makes sense if you read the
description of what you’re supposed to get out of it. Then you will nod
and say to your artistic friend, “Yes, I too can see the powdery snow
billowing in the wind as it scatters from the mountain top.” It is not
relaxing. It’s not inspirational. It’s mostly just very, very slow.
Morgan’s motivation for the latest Loscil album was the infinitely
patient and ageless mountains. He captured this deliberate pace quite
admirably, turning 54 minutes of music into a drone that never ends. If
only his audience could have the same sort of fortitude, he’d be a star.
Thirty-three Review
LOSCIL "coast/range/arc" on Exclaim's
"Best of 2011 Improv & Avant-Garde year-end list"...
Vancouver-based sound sculptor Scott Morgan doesn't make bad albums.
Working as Loscil, he's developed one of the most trusted and consistent
names in modern ambient composition. There was a four-year gap between
his 2006 effort Plume and 2010's Endless Falls, but rather than let that
happen again he quickly returned with Coast/Range/Arc earlier this year.
Hardly a throwaway collection, the album stands on its own as one of
Loscil's most engaging yet. Inspired by the vast landscapes of the
Pacific Northwest, the six-track release is comprised of enormous
compositions that slowly breathe in their long playing times. The result
is another stunningly engaging batch of material that ebbs and flows,
revealing new crevices of sound with each repeated listen. A grandiose
statement blanketed in subtlety, Coast/Range/Arc is a quiet winner. -
Josiah Hughes
EXCLAIM
Thirty-four Review
Vím, že poněkud přeháním, avšak hned Coast / range / arc, které nám nabídl Loscil, občanským jménem Scott Morgan, mě v této prognóze spíše utvrzuje. Album jako celek je ještě jednolitější, poklidnější, je to zvonivá, smírem prodchnutá symbióza s krajinou (údajně s rodnou Kanadou), nekoná se tu žádná zvuková vánice, celkově však je to mírnější i smírnější odlika Netherworldu, minimalističtější, repetitivnější. Melancholické, tajemné, až tajuplné nálady propojuje meditativnost, ozvučení vodou dodává přídech věrohodnosti, drónování podtrhuje „imitaci“ chladného Pacifiku. Ambient ve svém klasičtějším vyznění.
Thirty-five Review
Thirty-six Review
Thirty-seven Review
Thirty-eight Review
L’inverno è per me la stagione dell’ambient. Le giornate corte e il freddo fanno da cornice ideale ai maestosi landscape sonori che i maestri del genere sfornano in questo periodo.E in questa atmosfera ideale che mi sono lasciato rapire da quest’ultimo lavoro di Loscil. L’artista Canadese è per me uno dei maestri di quell’ambient “classica”, fatta di droni evocativi e potenti in grado di ricreare paesaggi invernali. Foreste innevate. Laghi ghiacciati. Immense distese sferzate da venti polari. Quell’ambient maestosa ma al tempo stesso melodica e lieve diversa da quella spigolosa e tagliente di artisti come Ben Frost o Roly Porter e, in certi lavori, Tim Hecker.Un ambient priva di glitch, caratterizzata da crescendo musicali e droni ampi ed ipnotici che, come un pennello di un pittore paesaggista, evocano vaste distese naturali. Maestosi scenari incontaminati dove la potenza della natura ancora domina e spaventa e la presenza umana è assente.Il disco infatti è un concept commissionato dall’etichetta romana “Glacial Movements” il cui tema è proprio quello di una “glacial and isolationist ambient”. E Loscil in questo dimostra tutta la sua arte. L’enorme capacità di proiettare l’ascoltatore in questi scenari.L’album si apre con la splendida Black Tusk e la sua maestosità spezzata solo da riverberi elettronici che danno l’idea di una landa spazzata da venti gelidi. Un pezzo potente ed in grado di catturare subito l’ascoltatore. Cosi come la successiva Fromme in cui lenti note di basso spezzano il lieve ruomore dello scorrere dell’acqua. Un album intenso, ispirato come pochi ed estremamente lucido nel proiettate l’ascoltatore in luoghi lontani. Un ascolto ideale in queste gelide notti invernali. Lasciatevi prendere per mano da Loscil e portare la dove domina solo il nulla degli elementi. Non ne rimarrete delusi.
Thirty-nine Review
Loscil é sinonimo di Scott Morgan, autore canadese attivo sin dal 1999 nel campo dell’elettronica ambientale con etichette di settore tra le quali l’americana Kranky, e noto in particolare per la sua bravura nel creare eccezionali sinfonie sintetiche incentrate su di un soggetto tematico ben definito. Naturale è venuta in tal modo la proficua collaborazione con la romana Glacial Movements, label dedita all’esplorazione in suoni dell’universo isolazionista ruotante intorno alla natura più pura ed incontaminata, la natura glaciale ed estrema dei confini del mondo. I 6 lunghi capitoli di “coast/range/arc” vogliono dipingere nelle nostre menti la dura e sublime bellezza delle aree montane costiere dello sconfinato Nord-Ovest canadese, proiettando l’ascoltatore in un viaggio immaginario verso queste propaggini estreme del continente natio di Scott. Dai tappeti sonori di “Black tusk” piuttosto che di “Goat mountain” emerge la fredda staticità dei laghi, dei ghiacciai e degli altipiani di quei luoghi incastonati ai margini del globo, rendendo l’ascolto del disco quanto di più prossimo alla contemplazione di una vivida fotografia grandangolare di uno skyline della Bristish Columbia. Una nuova, immancabile pietra angolare per lo splendido catalogo della label di Alessandro Tedeschi.