YAWNING CHASM - The Shadow Is That Hidden

The craftsmanship behind much of this music, which often borders on low-fi, is one of the ways out of the music business's chronic lack of inspiration, and an effective antidote to the grandiloquence of stadium rock and the banal architecture of mainstream pop. Yet it does not shield its makers from a stylistic and compositional normalization that, by smoothing out every dissonance, turns the authors into an indivisible unicum devoid of originality.

Aaron M. Coyne (aka Yawning Chasm) fills the six tracks of this EP with amateur cassette recordings, natural sounds (birdsong in “Distant Fires”) and acoustic harmonies that pleasantly recall Red House Painters, Codeine, and their many imitators. But the languid grace of “To The Void” and the hypnotic construction of “Monsters," rich in fascinating harmonic inventions, invite repeated listens without any strain. Aaron's talent and taste ensure that the six songs of “The Shadow Is The Hidden” rise above the predictability of the genre.

Piano, mandolin, and noises picked up by a transistor radio form the backdrop to the author's melancholic and delicate voice, which glides with tenderness and poetry over the notes of “Stars Are Going Out,” and lends voice to very intimate and painful moods in “Your Bones Will Bleach White.”

The simplicity of these songs shows no trace of naivety, and everything is lovingly handmade in an unusual format: a 3” CD in a colored cardboard sleeve, topped by a photograph taken by the author himself.

Elegant and understated, “The Shadow Is The Hidden” offers more than one moment of real emotion, making the wait for a fuller album than this intriguing EP sweeter.

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12/03/2010