INC. - As Light As Light

It really couldn't last, and indeed it didn't. 4AD is one of the most revered alternative record labels in history, with a past and present catalog enough to make any self-respecting music fan weak at the knees. And yet, under that very banner, in 2011 along came brothers Andrew and Daniel Aged aka Inc., with their ethereal, bleach-splattered electro-soul and a debut album – “No World” (2013) – as evocative to this writer as it was, frankly, off-brand for the label's usual audience, who indeed were not shy about turning up their noses (the same treatment reserved for Jessy Lanza, who weaves her colorful electro scores under the austere Hyperdub). Even a (gorgeous, as it happens) collaboration between the duo and FKA Twigs the following year did nothing to change the course of things, and the two parties soon went their separate ways; today, rebranded as Inc. No World, the duo have turned to crowdfunding.

The paradoxical thing, in all this, is that “As Light As Light” sounds like perhaps the closest thing to 4AD's indie coordinates that the Aged brothers have ever recorded. With the electronics pared right down to a minimum, and the r&b punctuation left behind (listen instead for the Donald Fagen-style sophisti-jazz gait of “Watch This Dream”), this new chapter reveals a clean, almost minimalist blend: barely-there rhythms, doubled vocals building some of the calmest blue-eyed soul harmonies you'll ever hear, and strands of torrid guitars – both electric and acoustic – tracing out, in isolation, the frames of these new, evanescent compositions.

The pair thus conjure up a highly personal gospel-folk vision (“Bending”), give life to moments of desert country (“For The Leaves”) and build playful acoustic sketches riding the wave of Kings Of Convenience (“In Love”), or else veer toward the stark, moving soul of Sade's “Lovers Rock” era (“Hymn 1” and “Hymn 2”).

The melodies float in mid-air and the human voice is often little more than a whisper, so the whole thing takes the shape of precious moments of delicate intimacy captured on tape, while the smell of asphalt wet with the first drops of a summer rain seems to hang in the air. Still, there's no shortage of sturdier moments; over the course of its six minutes, “The Wheel” ripples across layered guitars and a refrain that almost feels like a proper chorus, while “Waters To You” moves along more briskly over a bare bass line with eighties echoes (even as it does everything it can to avoid being pigeonholed as wave).

It's almost pointless to repeat it at this point, but you certainly don't come to Inc. No World's house looking for hype or strong emotions. Theirs is a discourse apart, a true “non-world” where a melancholy, quiet existence is rippled by mini emotional storms as delicate as they are necessary for growth – proof of which, perhaps, lies even in the duo's constant name changes: once known as Teen Inc., they then became Inc. during the 4AD era, while today they've pieced it all together as Inc. No World, as if wanting to ideally complete a circle, always within the total isolation of the family home.

But despite an elusive formula doled out in near-silence, anyone who finds themselves in tune with their atmospheres already knows they've found a small treasure to draw on whenever needed, because personal resonance is exactly the essence of what one glimpses – in watercolor brushstrokes – on “As Light As Light”: the soundtrack for those moments of solitude and introspection during which, rather than giving in to depression, one digs up from within a serene, reassuring peace of mind.

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27/09/2016