For starters, can anybody find a better title? Difficult, I’d say. Peter Wright tickles once again the drowsy end of consciousness, for the occasion excluding barbed-wire distortion to cuddle the responsive audience with his trademark protracted reverberations, jangling overlays (courtesy of those celebrated 12 strings) and, in general, overstretched hallucinations. This music constantly hides – good or bad things, it doesn’t matter – thus forcing that moment’s mental position to shift. We decide that something must be done, because what’s currently happening is not leading us anywhere.
So, following a short gentle intro (“Fell Asleep Here”), you let the entrancement of “Sunstroke” take command and starts daydreaming about some sort of impalpable truth that might be expecting behind the corner, a place where everything works as planned and you’re not supposed to struggle for what should be due – "rights", they used to call them. In “Lavender Buzz” blackbirds sing, insects do what the track’s name says and there’s seemingly nothing else to care for, regardless of the urban souvenirs utilized by Wright, a memento of the inevitability of a confrontation with the actual world. “River Lea Time Lapse” introduces the serious droning, the kind of inward-looking humming of frequencies that resemble a low-key choir, gently embraced by additional parts imbued in tremolo and echo. Wonderful piece: a deadpan facade that nevertheless shines, its composed charm utterly splendid.
“London Is Drowning…” is slightly more anguishing, offering a mournful stasis as the soil in which the roots of an implicit pessimism are nourished by looping liquids and vague remembrances of a ringing timbre. The castle of resonance generated by this superimposition of sorrow and luminescence features a magnificent room of mirrors: feeling entirely misplaced becomes really easy, yet painlessness affirms itself after the initial melancholy. “…And I Live By The River” – an extension of the previous track (and a reference to Clash?) – sees the currents flow into a different, but still motionless tonality, the unmistakable gradations of recollection an inestimable aid in the battle against the inexplicability of certain internal commotions. “Kestrels” ends the movie in style, puncturing the heart with glowing beams and moaning lows, sealing the experience with a stamp of uncertainty characterized by a moderate conflict between the upper partials.
Despite the endless repeats and the unremitting analysis people may want to subject it to, An Angel Fell Where The Kestrels Hover is a rather unexplainable work, a statement open to thousands of diverse interpretations, mostly based on individual acuity. The generative methods and the inherent moods that brought to the creation of this umpteenth resplendent record are discussed by the composer on this interview with yours truly. Anyhow, words ring hollow when the sound is this profound, and this solitary man from New Zealand is definitely among the deepest artists around today.
Spekk
