Imagine a sonority considering all the hypotheses of slow pulse and luminous reverberation formulated over the years by La Monte Young and Charlemagne Palestine, and fusing them in a warm ambient liquid, surely reminiscent of Brian Eno and Harold Budd but with complex rather than honeyed resonant traits. Now think of virtual pianos of varying length, tuned according principles known only to the composer, performing easy melodies that – quite puzzlingly – delimit an acoustic microcosm where conflicting harmonics solve their issues peacefully, continuing to exist individually while originating nerve-soothing textural currents.
Tanner Menard, whose work I meet for the first time, specializes in sleep-inducing music (Robert Rich being one of his main conceptual influences) and is a person who is obviously researching within himself, but also willing to share certain discoveries with a larger number of human beings. The nine tracks presented here are absolutely nothing special in terms of composition; regardless, it’s the multitude of partials that gives the whole a unique flavor, halfway through a strange dream in infinite repeat and a melancholic sense of long ago. These combinations put in motion a mechanism of slight deformation of reality that seems to run parallel with reality itself. Like looking ourselves into a mirror and seeing our habitual face paired with a second version made of blurred lines and dots to connect.
Deepest Indigo is a fascinating and utterly pleasing album. It needs a (focused) abandon of any defence to appreciate sonic values emerging beyond the straightforwardness of the melodic contents. In a way, it’s a symbolization of the fertility of modesty: an invitation to observe even the simplest things with the awareness that there’s more than meets the eye (and, in this case, the ear). That “more” must come out of a pair of speakers, though, otherwise the magic will be inevitably diminished.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 