Isan - Synthetic Fables and IDM Artifice

There was a time when electronic music was a clearly defined label. Times when artists like Boards Of Canada and the whole scene around labels such as n5md, Type Records, Morr Music and Plug Research dominated the covers of specialist magazines, years when a drum machine pattern layered over a guitar chord or an ambient score had a universal identity. These were sounds that conveyed, alongside melancholy, the anxiety and sense of disorientation of the new millennium about to arrive, the uncertainty and complete disillusionment about the future. Through different approaches, experiences, fortunes and outcomes, exciting, emotional and moving sounds exploded and emerged from that historical period.

In this story we're about to tell, there are two protagonists, and they fully belong to this musical revolution that erupted in the late 90s. The English duo Antony Ryan and Robin Saville immediately proved they possessed a magic capable of setting them apart from much of the music on the market at the time. Their compositions radiate a genuineness closely related to melancholy, a pleasant sense of disorientation combined with an unmistakable gift for melody and rhythm. Simple, jagged, layered textures, never excessive or random, hazy and reflective. And it's perhaps for these and a thousand other reasons that the award-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino – together with his longtime collaborator Pasquale Catalano – has often chosen their tracks for his film soundtracks, most recently "Fueled" – featured on Lucky Cat – taken from the TV series "The Young Pope".

The project begins its journey with limited-run releases such as 7-inches, splits, singles and EPs, luckily largely gathered on the compilation Clockwork Menagerie. After two splits released in quick succession (with Tin Foil Star aka Styrofoam and Metrotone), two singles followed, titled "Dampen" and "Parochi/A Gentle Man", both from 1999. At times even more mature and structured than the tracks on their debut album, these two compositions – cold and not especially melodic – show a genuinely remarkable maturity in rhythmic and timbral craftsmanship, later sublimated in the sinuous "Wistful Song For A Soaring Gull" – included on Dampen – perhaps one of the first truly fully-realized examples of their sonic formula.

Their first full-length album arrived in 1998 with Beautronics, released on Rough Trade's subsidiary Tugboat Records – founded by Piano Magic frontman Glen Johnson – a label whose roster includes major names such as Low, mùm and Disco Inferno. The album unfolds across sixteen tracks and is structured around main songs interspersed with short one-minute-ish sketches bearing the suffix "Tint".

Despite flashes of genius ("Sublimation" is truly magnificent), the record is too sprawling and decidedly fragmentary. The early IDM experiments yield positive results without overreaching (the opening "Vosil", the lovely bucolic sketch of "Paintchart"), while the interludes are little more than rough drafts (particularly "Tint3" and "Tint4"), and other episodes feel underdeveloped or half-formed ("Skeek", "Iam Twisq").

Beautronics comes across as a genuine "first attempt", a quirky, almost clumsy and naive debut, but nonetheless essential for understanding where Antony and Robin started from. In 2013 Morr Music reissued the album with four new tracks added (among them the standout "Spoonery") and the removal of "Sublimation".

The following year the band changed labels again, landing on Liquefaction Empire. On Digitalis – effectively a mini-album – their sound already begins taking clearer shape from the opening "Zip Left, Zip Right", where more fully-formed structures start to emerge. Slightly more abrasive attacks ("'Bean Sea" recalls peak-era Autechre) often give way to lukewarm mini-suites ("M.Mouse", "Falling"), while somewhat more structured compositions offer a bit more to be curious about ("Dilly", "Reno"). The beautiful "Quink Like Ink" closes things out, with concrete samples lending the composition extra liveliness.

Amid a period of intense creativity, the "Isan" style grew more defined with Salamander, released just a few months after Digitalis and their first outing on the famous Berlin label Morr Music, which would later become a true "home" for the duo. At the same time, that year saw the rise of a trend in electronic music whose peak was reached both with the release of "Music Has The Right To Children" (actually released a few months earlier, in 1998) by Boards Of Canada (whose career would later explode with 2002's "Geodaddi") and the continuing relevance of Autechre's masterpieces from a few years earlier (in 1999, in fact, "LP 5" was released). Listening-oriented electronic music – whether more highbrow or "pop" – was undergoing massive upheaval, and thanks to an exciting creative frenzy and sense of urgency, a huge amount of material was being produced. And it was there that our duo managed to carve out their space, with an album showing clear references to the much-discussed IDM (a controversial but ultimately understandable acronym), ambient-leaning keyboards, plus the pulse of a certain strain of electro that would soon take off in decidedly shifting directions.

Starting the listen, we come across "Peg": amid placid carpets of keyboards and countless layers of synthetic rhythms, gusts of disconnection and various glitches creep in, composing the polite soundtrack for a malfunctioning piece of software. The listening experience continues with gentle concessions to their more ambient side ("Proager", "Lid Former", "Twentyfive Thirtyone"), while at other times the rhythm becomes more prominent, with truly remarkable results (the title track, the disjointed "Happy Pet In A Car", almost venturing into glitch territory). Among the most significant tracks is "Still. Blue", which, through extremely delicate drum machine touches, vocal samples and skilful keyboard brushstrokes, lulls the atmosphere to sleep, making it faint and muffled.

Other gems sit on the same coordinates ("Clipper", the slightly streaked "Snot" and "Effekl"), while "Braille Foundry", a collaboration with the band Charles Atlas – whose lineup also includes a former member of Piano Magic – enchants with a lovely acoustic guitar backdrop.

Only occasionally able to keep pace with the records that followed, Salamander offers a substantial appetizer shortly before the Isan project's definitive artistic fulfilment.

That moment arrived in 2001 with Lucky Cat, coinciding with their creative and popular peak, probably also aligned with the golden era of Thomas Morr's label. This album is etched into the history of modern electronic music for its crystalline touch, for a gentle, well-mannered way of entering the listener's ears.

The opening is an immediate gut-punch to absorb: "Cutlery Favours" is, by any measure, one of the finest tracks the duo ever released. The coarse-grained synth of the opening is, after just a few seconds, overrun by a flood of sonic blasts and a flickering shimmer that feels equal parts magic and sorrow, in a five-minute symphony that leaves the listener utterly flattened.

The tone softens with the nursery-rhyme-like “Table Of Deciduous Species”, lukewarmly flecked with a disjointed rhythm and a thread of synthesizer as delicate as the weave of a spiderweb. It’s that same rhythm that runs through the beautiful, already-mentioned “Fueled” – which closes with an interplay of sounds resembling the laments of a dying star – followed by small masterpieces such as “Recently In The Sahara” and “What This Button Did” (a mesmerizing succession of synthetic puffs and chirps).

The album doesn’t lose an ounce of its effectiveness and charm even in its middle stretch, alternating dreamy cybernetic lullabies (“Anteaters Eat Ants”, “Kittenplan A”) with episodes more properly rooted in IDM (the rhythmic layers of “Read Again” and “Scraph”). Standing out here is “Cathart” (already featured in “L’amico di famiglia”), with its wonderful succession of melodies and sobs, a track built in a nearly flawless way and charged with high emotional intensity.

The album fades into sandy, crepuscular rarefactions (“Caddis”, “You Can Use Bambolo As A Ruler”), leaving behind a not-quite-defined bittersweet feeling. This work will remain one of the most significant examples of electronic music’s expressive power, able to stir unimaginable emotions with sound alone.

Hot on the heels of the release of Lucky Cat came a single and an EP of previously unreleased material that would never be revisited. Exquisite Honeyed Tart – on Static Caravan – and Salle d’Isan on Morr together make up, at least numerically, almost another album’s worth of material. While the former opens with a darkness unusual for Isan’s standards (the title track), before moving into a playfulness that wouldn’t have been out of place on any of their albums (“Hugs Now, No Kisses (Hugo’s Sleep)”), the latter is effectively a proper mini-album. Salle d’Isan indeed contains several gems well worth rediscovering. While “Days & Later” pushes the kick drum to the edge of a gentle techno pulse, “Bubbles8” and “Disruptive Elephant” are candied with that underlying sweetness that has by now become the duo’s signature. “Fullen Brimm” flaunts a coarse-grained synth and a futuristic atmosphere, while “Serene Driver” is a stellar lullaby, one of the finest tracks the duo has ever released.

Less than a year later, another essential piece in the duo’s artistic journey was released. In 2002, the trusty Morr label put out the compilation Clockwork Menagerie, made up of tracks that had previously appeared on hard-to-find EPs or singles. Here one can hear, scattered across the record, the full creativity and genius at the heart of the English duo’s artistic partnership – arguably the highest sublimation of the music they had produced up to that point. It’s hard to resist the sheer abundance of sonic stimuli, starting with the enchanting pulse of “Betty’s Lament”, not to mention the aching pastoral melancholy of “Calf” and “Cubillo”, the electric distortions of “Comb” and “Autolung”, and the hypnotic, unsettling back-and-forth of voices in the magnificent “Remegio” (later used again by Sorrentino in the film “Le conseguenze dell'amore”).

Going through the tracklist, one realizes just how broad the spectrum of influences the two musicians have drawn on throughout their career really is: a true fan will spot the forays into techno – always tempered, as ever, by their characteristic restraint – in tracks like “Damil 85”, beautifully embellished by a vocal sample. The more “ambient” and diluted side reveals a more reflective dimension (“Eeriel”, “Ulim”, “Schema”), yet one still tied to the anxieties of kosmische musik (“Titled, Not Tithed”).

The remaining tracks make room for electro sounds, whether leaning toward more acidic territory (“Phoeb”, “Schema”), playful moods (the fun “Rron”) or sprawling textures (the fine drive of “Eusa’s Head”). This amounts to a kind of summa of styles, trends and electronic waves spanning more than fifteen years of music, all of it clearly filtered through the unmistakable sensibility of Robin and Antony. The release is enhanced by top-notch artwork, once again courtesy of Jan Kruse, who has illustrated nearly all of Isan’s releases on Morr Music.

Lost in the clutter of record releases, also from 2002, are two mini-splits with Lali Puna (released by the Bologna-based Unhip Records) and Phonophani. On the first record, Isan’s contribution doesn’t add anything of note, while in the case of “My Soaring Heart”, the faint lament of a voice in the background pulls together some pleasant atmospheres.

Two years later, in 2004, came the fourth studio album, Meet Next Life, which introduces new elements into the already considerable sonic palette offered so far. Those were years when folktronic sounds were in high demand, with bands like The Books and Tunng gracing the covers of music magazines and headlining major festivals. With this effort, Isan fell in with that wave, bringing in a handful of instruments to flesh out the electronics. How could one not spot elements of folktronica in the bucolic unfolding of “Birds Over Barges”? And how could one remain unmoved by the xylophone chimes of “The Race To Be First Home”?

The upside is that this departure from their original style (the bassline of “Sat 73” is another interesting detour) works perfectly well and is, in any case, only partial. Indeed, with tracks like “First Date – Jumble Sale”, “One Man Abandon” or “Gurnard”, it’s pure Isan-style that will flood your ears with caressing flurries of bits and slow-motion rhythms.

Coming to the rescue to raise the stakes and inject a jolt of tension is the layered “Gunnera”, which, thanks to a rich interweaving of sonic layers, is thoroughly satisfying, while the genuine electro-pop of “Iron Eyes” surprises with how well the musicians handle territory they’re not used to. From the midpoint onward, the record gains altitude with the sweet pulsations of “Snowdrops And Phlox” and “Willory”, two genuine sound-paintings of chiaroscuro forests. The closing stretch settles into pleasant but unsurprising atmospheres (the title track is very good, while “Slow Bulb Slippage” is a bit underwhelming).

Although this remains a solidly decent release overall, the gap between Meet Next Life and a true classic like Lucky Cat is noticeable: there’s less empathy, or what one might call “expressive urgency”, even if there are still good songs and memorable moments. We can fairly call it a classic transitional album.

Alongside the experience of Meet Next Life – in which acoustic instruments were used for the first time – two solo albums by Robin Saville deserve a mention: Peasgood Nonsuch, released in 2008 on Static Caravan, and Public Flowers, put out by Second Language five years later, in 2013. The shift toward folktronic territory, even hinting at the toy-tronica of Psapp, is even more pronounced here, and the presence of a few suites evoking modern-classical atmospheres shows the breadth of the English artist’s inspiration. The second album in particular shows a great ability to blend acoustic sensibility with electronic textures. Both albums are well worth seeking out, especially given how little attention they received.

Arriving in 2006, at a time when the indietronica wave was suffering a decline in both sales and inspiration, Plans Drawn In Pencil tries to find new paths after the uncertainties of the previous release. The only way out of that impasse was a return to the purely electronic composition that has always defined the English duo. The record takes off right from the start with a truly remarkable trio of tracks, opening with the bucolic pulses of “Look And Yes”, continuing with the seductive synth of “Cinnabar”, and closing with the pastoral puffs of “Yttrium”.

As the minutes go by, however, several weaknesses creep in, with tracks drained of pathos (“Ship”, “Corundum”, “Ruined Feathers”), later forgotten thanks to the qualities shown both in the languid, flowing “Roadrunner”, which paints watercolors of unmistakable charm, and when one stumbles upon the hypnotic ambient of “Immoral Architecture”.

The focus of Isan's music seems to have shifted toward a more lucid, less emotional vision, driven by a more reasoned and less instinctive passion. This isn't always a flaw, since their unerring gift for beautiful melodies remains intact (caressing in "Amber Button", sharp-edged in "Five to Four, Ten to Eleven"). What fails to convince is the lack of an underlying glue holding together a cohesive, well-finished record; the feeling is one of a series of episodes without a guiding idea behind them, despite the evocative sweetness of "Seven Mile Marker" and the glitchy dust clouds of "Working In Dust".

In light of this partial uncertainty, right after the release of the decent EP "Trois Gymnopedies", the Isan project was put on hold for longer than usual.

Four years later came Glow In The Dark Safari Set, their sixth studio album (seventh, if we count the mini-album "Digitalis"), in which fifty minutes once again sketch out a dreamlike, alien dimension, suspended between toy keyboards, more or less explicit homages to Kraftwerk and skillful IDM artifice, all dominated by a retro-futurist aesthetic that is anything but cloying - in fact, quite a credible representation of something that for Isan is anything but a trend-driven pose. It's somewhat the fate of pioneers to lose the attention they deserve just as the "phenomenon" explodes, and likewise to start losing part of their initial drive right when they might finally reap the deserved rewards.

In this sense, Glow In The Dark Safari Set certainly can't be called an album "that arrives too late", since, for instance, when it steps on the gas of its enveloping cosmic drift, it shows it has little to envy in the celebrated synthetic emotion of Oneohtrix Point Never; however, once past the caresses of the myriad sounds slipping between hisses, crackles and pulses, the record flows along neatly through its carefully carved melodies, but its tracks struggle to leave any further mark beyond their shifting analogue modulations or occasional rhythmic forays.

If the liquid embrace of the opening "Channel Ten" is translated into a vaguely acid version by "The Axle", and the IDM beats of "Grisette" and "Catgot" only slightly ruffle the record's playful retro guidelines, its second half suffers from a certain fatigue, noticeable especially across the more than nine minutes of "64 Fire Damage" and in the repetitive cosmic immersion of "Slurs And Slowly". The only significant spark left in this section is the vocalizing on closer "East Side V34", which seems to close the retro-futurist circle, throwing a bridge toward the more ethereal side of Stereolab.

Made and assembled with their usual solid craft, the album stands as fresh proof of the English duo's lasting vitality, a record that only partly satisfies but doesn't dent their class in the slightest. Following this album, and aside from the release of the EP "Discette" in 2012, the English pair went back into a six-year recording silence.

In August 2016, the official Facebook page posted a photo of new artwork with no accompanying message. It was in fact the announcement of a new work, officially released on October 14 of that same year. Anticipation ran high because, even though everyone knew there was no talk of a split, new songs were slow to arrive. Glass Bird Movement brings back all the best traits of the duo's music: muffled atmospheres, barely sketched rhythms, ambient litanies somewhere between melancholy and twilight, and plenty of melodies, simple but gorgeous.

The result is certainly interesting: this return to an ambient sound that's not overly rapturous but fresh and lively breathes new life into the project after some uncertainty about direction. Across these eleven songs we find soft electro-pop weaves (the loops of the title track, the IDM warmth of "Parley Glove" and "Slow Rings"), rhythmic sketches leaning toward ambient ("Lace Murex", the almost impalpable "Linnaues"), episodes more tied to the electro nature of this music ("Napier Deltic", "Rattling Downhill"), all condensed and bound together by an uncommon melodic and timbral sensitivity, a sense of sound that leaves you spellbound and amazed.

The manifesto of the record and its best moment is "Risefallsleep", a kind of emo-electro-ambient piece in which the background synths paint a tear-jerking progression, showing strong affinities with another masterpiece, "Cutlery Favours".

In light of the results of this latest release, the six years of hiatus clearly weren't spent in vain. And it's with these sounds that the story of a duo's career comes to a close, at least for now - a duo that, quietly and without fanfare, left its mark on an entire era of electronic music, offering new solutions with grace and an unmistakable compositional style.

Contributions by Raffaello Russo ("Glow In The Dark Safari Set")

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