Celer - Capri

CELER - CAPRI (HUMMING CONCH)

Will Long and Dani Baquet-Long have been producing translucent moments of ethereal music since 2005, and this latest album is the latest installment of rich, golden slices of ambience that are fast becoming some of my favourites in this genre. “Capri” takes its name from the beautiful Italian island where it was recorded, taking onboard field recording techniques mixed in with more traditional instrumentation. Stretched out over 29 tracks, the album ebbs and flows with a persuasiveness that keeps the listener coming back to remember or to revisit the various nooks and crannies that decorate the audial landscape. Some tracks come in at less than a minute long, but unlike other interludes so beloved of musicians of this style, these do provide a sense of narrative and cohesion that lace the album with a sense of tenderness. The overwhelming feeling is of a nebulous and amorphous sound, where it’s difficult to trace the source. There’s all sorts of emotion at play here, and it’s the ambiguity that kept me coming back for me.  One imagines the two of them getting lost in the back streets of a sleepy Italian village on a hot afternoon and producing music to reflect that experience. The longest track at 7 minutes, “Lint White” is the most obscure, tendrils of noise and barely audible whispers of sound almost out of reach of ones ear intertwining with each other before dissapating into the ether.

“Capri” never really awakens from a self-imposed myopic slumber, but given the conditions in which it was recorded in, why would you want it to?

Toby Frith