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But done properly, ambient music truly transcends mood – it does not accompany, nor influence it, but rise above circumstance and environment to enlighten and, ultimately, enthral. The arrangements trickle out like the thinnest cut that won’t stop bleeding, but there’s always direction and purpose. Eno, at his best, always had a below-the-surface narrative; his sweeping drones were window dressing for backdrops of great intent, of solid focus and fearsome ambition – a maverick rarely meanders. And Eluvium, aka Portland, Oregon’s Matthew Cooper, plies similarly affecting but pertinently purposeful fare. Drift away you can, but only where Cooper directs you.
Similes is his fifth album – his fourth, 2007’s Copia, took him from underground attraction to an act with cross-Atlantic appeal, reviews on both sides of the divide reading like assemblages of purple-prose plaudits (albeit largely confined to the geographically unrestricted ‘net) rather than properly balanced assessments of an artist’s latest work. But that’s what quality ambient music can do to the listener: wrap them up inside it, protect them from harm, and force their forgetting of pesky prior engagements.
This set isn’t without relative fault. It plays things safe, generically speaking, too often to truly shine as a canon classic. Beautiful though Bending Dream and In Culmination are, they’re nothing fans of this style won’t have heard several times before. But Similes is blessed with moments, with movements, of impossibly diaphanous, distinctly delicate elegance. Cooper’s occasional vocals are part-Stuart Staples, part-Matt Berninger, imperfect yet all the more engaging for their roughness. On the opening brace of Leaves Eclipse the Light and The Motion Makes Me Last, the combination of soft, whispered words and the gently billowing music around them is wholly enveloping. But it’s not float-away, background material; these songs poke and prod while clasping you close, the embrace warm but never completely comfortable.
This collection’s title rather anticipates, and in doing so averts, any clichéd metaphorical climax, so forgive the curt conclusion: glorious, albeit predictably so, Similes is a delight to be distracted by. --Mike Diver
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His back catalogue proved to be a mine of similar treats, even if none were as polished as Copia.
I was therefore somewhat concerned when I found out that he had branched out with his latest release and started adding (his own) vocals to his work. I must admit that initially I didn't want to like it and therefore I listened to it once, dismissed his voice as too 'weedy' and relegated it to the back of my shelf.
I recently revisited it and was delighted to discover how very wrong I had been. His voice strangely seems to have always been present in his past work and it is only with this album that you can actually hear it, that's how well it fits with the music.
It really isn't my normal favourite style of singing but it does work, I would describe it as very Brian Eno and quintessentially English. I know... *another* Eluvium review that mentions Eno, but it really is an apt comparison. And it really grows on you, it does.
And if you disagree with everything else I have said here, at least give me credit for spelling 'quintessentially' right, damn near gave me a headache.
TL;DR: His music has evolved, give it a chance it still works.
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