ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE - Faded Photographs

More than simply the second full-length credited to Absent Without Leave, the artistic project of George Mastrokostas, "Faded Photographs" is the present-tense embodiment of the old idea of the "supergroup", an icon that keeps resurfacing throughout the history of contemporary music, perhaps because of the fascination of bringing together, in a single context, artists coming from different backgrounds.

In the internet age, this meeting can only be a virtual one, just like the artists from various parts of the world who put together the pieces that make up "Faded Photographs", a work that features, across every track, the constant presence of the Greek guitarist and multifaceted electronic manipulator, ideally flanked by friends and collaborators in continuous rotation. The handover between the various artists is obviously not a physical one, but was carried out through sessions recorded in seven locations around the world (Genoa, Reykjavik, Leeds, Staffordshire, Vienna, Boston and Quebec), whose files were then blended together in Mastrokostas's Athens recording studio to produce an organic work, steeped in a nostalgic, autumnal breath, shaped time and again according to kindred sensibilities, though partially divergent in strictly sonic terms.

In the opening "How The Winter Comes", the warm tones of muffled guitar reverbs are flanked by the discreet texture drawn by the keyboards and samples of Port-Royal and by refined string touches, which fade into a sort of chamber ambient that flows toward a placid, romantic finale. The following "Old Memory Tapes" sees Epic45 and Richard Adams (Hood, The Declining Winter) contribute crystalline acoustic textures and a series of organic surges and pushes that flank Mastrokostas's guitar, which grows just slightly more decisive and full-bodied, acting almost as a counterpoint to the ethereal countryside panoramas so well materialised by the British artists.

The two following tracks heighten the electroacoustic pulsations and the spatial, enveloping traits of a sound that, thanks to Ólafur Josephsson (Stafrænn Hákon), simultaneously evokes enveloping Nordic landscapes and has fun playing with folk rhythms and harmonies, through banjo, harp and even maracas, which in "Balloons In The Sky" reunite with the rural sweetness of Ben Holton (Epic45, My Autumn Empire) and his glimpses of clear skies and hazy clouds.

The closing part of the work dives more decisively into electronics, first showing a few sharper rhythmic jolts, contributed by Pascal Asselin (Millimetrik) framing overtones and reverbs twisted into concrete form ("Where The Birds Fly In Winter"), before gradually fading into the synthetic textures and faint beats that, introduced by Ettore Di Roberto and Emilio Pozzolini in the closing "Above The Trees", enliven opaque, increasingly slowing cadences, confirming Port-Royal's recent ambient fascinations.

What is most surprising, across all eight tracks, is the substantial consistency of the overall result of a work conceived and realised by a plurality of artists in separate places and moments; without reaching truly significant peaks in its survey of temporal suspensions, impalpable atmospheres and more concrete electroacoustic chiselling, "Faded Photographs" draws a subtle line connecting arctic suggestions and guitar delays, through bucolic contemplations, ambient immersions and electronic ripples, delivering a generous forty-odd minutes of mid-air musical flight, which anyone who already appreciates the artists involved in this "delocalised" project will only find pleasant to be carried away by.

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10/12/2010