ORCAS - Orcas

The beloved Morr Music hadn't seen such splendor in a long time. Too many so-so records, often stuck on the same well-worn path. There was no verve, no drive to push forward. Then Thomas Meluch/Benoît Pioulard and Rafael Anton Irisarri/Sight Below decided to collaborate. On one side, the Portland kid who has charmed listeners with productions straddling pop and folk tinged with electronics; on the other, Irisarri, who ranges from the electroacoustic tones of his eponymous project to the shoegaze-tinged ambient-techno of his The Sight Below alias — not so far removed from Gas.

On this Orcas, a liaison unfolds that transcends the two artists' respective sensibilities. This isn't ambient in the strict sense, nor is there ever an insistent beat. Orcas speaks a highly singular language, crossing genre boundaries and settling into a vast, open territory. The nine tracks intersect, flowing into and through one another. What's created is a fluid magma, one that lays the groundwork for a celestial, minimal songwriting, carving its trail through a play of boreal colors. Cinematic sonic passages are conjured by drones that rise ever so lightly, warm ambient-slowcore breezes thick with melancholy, and a tepid, pale dream-pop patina.

"Pallor Cedes" opens the dance immersed in a slightly acrid folk minimalism, but it's the splendid piano-and-guitar overture of "Arrow Drawn", a suspended litany, that brings the sweetness. Color slowly seeps through the pastel drones of "Standard Error", as well as in the subdued melancholy of "Carrion", with its tearful, slow-motion pace not far from the best of White Birch.

The ripples on the water's surface in "A Subtle Escape" open the door to the spectral piano figure of "Until Then" (a Broadcast cover), over which an acidic drone gradually builds before abruptly cutting off. The sweetness of Windy & Carl brands "High Fences" with fire, but not before "I Saw My Echo" has flooded the room with its staggering tenderness — dream-pop for the most delicate of hearts.

There's just no holding back, no holding back at all. No way to keep from tearing up, from being moved. Where Grouper called out into the night, Orcas whisper at dawn, capturing it in a photograph. What's left is a crystal-clear, minimal little scene, a snapshot that dissolves every rough edge. The breeze lays down its wake in waves, and in that meadow we'll watch the sun rise right there, so close to everything.

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28/02/2012