Eluvium - Lambent Material
by Jon Rogers
published: 24 / 5 / 2003
Label:
Temporary Residence
Format: CD
intro
"Glorious", soporific post-rock from new talent Eluvium, the moniker of Portland-based musician Matthew Cooper
Portland-based Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) certainly are soporific. To be precise, 'Lambent Material' inhabits that strange world that exists between sleeping and consciousness where the id and the ego battle it out for dominance. Images flicker and shadows are cast across the mind's eye before quickly dying. As the title suggests, this is music glowing with soft radiance. Like an array of out-of-focus photos, what exactly is really going on can never precisely be determined. Reality or fiction? Who knows as the edges are blurred. In this post-modernist world, the power of the semiotic Myth is ever-present - and what greater place to do that than in the imprecise textures that Eluvium luxuriate in? The signs are there, but not only do they point in the direction headed, but they also obscure clarity, evade definition and are highly ethereal. Eerie, simplistic piano is mixed in with static noise, chilling solitary tones swell slowly up before either gently fading away again into obscurity, or breaking-up like waves against rocks. It's as if Codeine has been asked along to a jam session with ambient-era Brian Eno - and the audience is half-way down the road. Despite the rather silly titles ('I Am So Much More Me That You Are Perfectly You' (sic) or 'Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image') this is glorious, enveloping and almost epic solitary music for quiet introspective contemplation late at night after the party has long since finished. It's best heard in its entirety. The spirit is captured in its broad, sweeping brush strokes rather than the specific. Echoes resonate whilst the disintegration continues.
Track Listing:-
1 The Unfinished2 Under the Water It Glowed
3 There Wasn't Anything
4 Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image
5 I Am So Much More Me That You Are Perfectly You
Band Links:-
https://www.facebook.com/Eluvium-40059892665/http://www.eluvium.net/
https://twitter.com/eluvium
Label Links:-
http://temporaryresidence.com/https://www.facebook.com/temporaryresidence
https://twitter.com/tempresltd
https://www.youtube.com/user/temporaryresidence
https://plus.google.com/+temporaryresidence
bandcamp
soundcloud
reviews |
Nightmare Ending (2013) |
Epic and hopeful-sounding post-rock on magnifecently-packaged double album from Eluvium, the project of Portland, Oregon-based musician Matthew Cooper |
Similes (2010) |
Copia (2007) |
most viewed articles
current edition
Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies - Sala Apolo, Barcelona, 29/11/2023 and La Paqui, Madrid, 30/11/2023Anthony Phillips - Interview
Difford and Tilbrook - Difford and Tilbrook
Rain Parade - Interview
Oldfield Youth Club - Interview
Autumn 1904 - Interview
Shaw's Trailer Park - Interview
Cafe No. 9, Sheffield and Grass Roots Venues - Comment
Pete Berwick - ‘Too Wild to Tame’: The story of the Boyzz:
Chris Hludzik - Vinyl Stories
most viewed reviews
current edition
Marika Hackman - Big SighSerious Sam Barrett - A Drop of the Morning Dew
Rod Stewart and Jools Holland - Swing Fever
Loves - True Love: The Most of The Loves
Ian M Bailey - We Live in Strange Times
Paul McCartney and Wings - Band on the Run
Autumn 1904 - Tales of Innocence
Roberta Flack - Lost Takes
Banter - Heroes
Posey Hill - No Clear Place to Fall
Pennyblackmusic Regular Contributors
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart