Customer Reviews

Gravitational Pull Vs. the Desisre for An Aquatic

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a big fan of Stars of the Lid. I rank them up there with the likes of earlier Tetsu Inoue and the atmospheric side of Steve Roach. STOL produce some of the most chilled, consistently excellent ambient and drone I have ever heard.

Gravitational Pull reeks of drug induced summer afternoons, lazily shifting light tones and textures and incorporating very vague sounds. It is quite effective any time of day, as SOTL have obvious talent and this music serves as an excellent companion for bedtime or mid afternoons. As long as work is far far away and it's time for some relaxation or introspection.

Considered an EP in some places, Gravitational Pull is a solid 51 minutes, and there's not a minute wasted. I'd name the highlights but all tracks are important and delightfully good. Start your Stars of the Lid collection here.

There are two Stars of the Lid albums anyone interested in the group should start with as a primer - Tired Sounds, or this one.

The title of the CD reflects the way the album plays out. The first two tracks, "The Better Angels of Our Nation" and "Cantus II," have a murky sound which implies gravity of the emotional kind. From "Jan. '69" onwards though the album develops a liberating psych-rock feel, which peaks in the rising guitars of "Be Little With Me."

The overall effect is supremely calming. It makes me wonder why we don't hear SotL on the radio alongside Enya. On so-called New Age programs, anyway.

No sense of sustained explosive release, circular directionality, or heavily textured distortion characterizes the type of drone that the tracks comprising the sophomore release of Stars of The Lid are centered around.

Not heavy in amplitude or in modulation, they're single-toned and ambient in nature, constructed primarily from what sound like treated guitar, and at first listen can seem repetitive, if not dowwnright monotonous. But that's only true if you're listening on a purely superficial level. Grab a pair of headphones or earbuds, and listen to that rascal again.

You're not going to hear the kind of levitational, shimmery drones that created by Windy and Carl, the massive, elongated tonally expansive drones that Landing traffic in, or the visceral, heavily-grained, roar-of-the-universe distortion harnessed so effectively by Bardo Pond. What you will hear on "Gravitational Pull Vs. The Desire For An Aquatic Life" is something more akin to what Brian Eno pioneered in the '70's, the radiating ambient drone. Sure, it sounds like it's going nowhere at first, and yes, the second track ,"Canto...", could benefit from some radical editing. But listen carefully to the rest. It's not about amplitude and dynamic tension; it's more about subtle alterations in the level of magnitude, a sense of shifting from peak to valley and back again in a minimal yet accretive fashion.

"Gravitational Pull..." is best experienced in one sitting, preferably while in a state of relaxation. It's definitely not something you want to cue up when you feel the need to listen to something catharctic. But for it is meant to do it does well, and fans of Labradford should find a comfort zone with this.

The material SOTL have released, in particular their older work like this and Ballasted Orchestra, can seem uninteresting if you're not paying attention (one of the main complaints by people who don't listen to ambient frequently). The trick is to get into a state of total relaxation or put on your headphones while you're drifting off. This music triggers a quasi-dream state in my mind, plays back childhood memories, fantasy worlds that I have imagined, and makes me think of all that was and all that will ever be; modernity's music for the philosopher. I listen to a lot of ambient, and only a few select artists live up to that lofty goal (Gas, Biosphere, Harold Budd, Loscil). This album and pretty much every other release by SOTL is worth picking up. I only wish labels would re-release ambient classics so us connoisseurs didn't have to pay so much for them...

these guys are good, real good. ambient as it should be. don't hesitate like I did, just buy it, all their stuff is brilliant

References of intoxication and blasting heat always come to mind indication with this particular recording. The album starts out in this sort of 'green world' sound -- as if one is opening his eyes to pure, blue skied, summer morning. SOTL incorporates these lovely, naturesque field recordings with this disc that develop that mood and feeling even more. Tracks like "Cantus II;In memory of Warren Wiltzie" float in this sort of "life-infested" field of memories and hot beating summer sun. This is the ideal album for a lazy summer afternoon. I enjoy listening to it right before a summer rain comes and washes out this unbeatable heat too. Excellent follow up to their "Music for Nitrous Oxide" record on Sedimental, this disc was re-released on Kranky in 1997.

I bought this on the advice of Portis,and what good advice it was.
Imagine the sounds of the creation of life on Earth,now slow the sounds down until one second becomes one hour,that's something like the sounds of this disc.
Imagine you are an alien visiting the earth.You travel inside a liquid bubble floating through this strange landscape,through air and water...each moment is so complicated and yet so simple.
Perhaps the universe is simply a cell within another universe and so on into infinity...and perhaps this is the sound of all the cells singing.

The first Stars Of The Lid track I heard was Be Little With Me, and I was really enchanted by it, but after thoroughly exploring the bands catalog I haven't found anything that compares. The majority of their stuff offers just a cold ambient drone without any of the My Bloody Valentiney shimmer that makes Be Little With Me so great. So if you're like me, you'd probably be better served by picking up Accelera Deck's album Narcotic Beats.