Review of Somi [12k1087]

Vital Weekly (NL)

Somi comes in a beautiful hardbound book, filled with the inspirational photographs for this record of slowly repetitive, soft and gentle electronics. A grouping this is of explorations of change, stasis and time versus timelessness – the debasement of time, too. Somi is constructed without the use of software or automatic looping. Deupree instead, opted for the more tactile and hands-on approach and worked with analogue cassette players to construct layered and textured ambient fields.

Somi shares affinities with the ambient LP’s that propelled Brian Eno to massive fame,while connecting firmly with the soft-spoken and highly sophisticated stylings ofCeler. In the ever volatile analogue realm of phasing and polyrhythms falling apart;disintegrating in the very construction of the works, Somi claims a spot right next to William Basinski’s master piece quartet of fragmentation, somehow, somewhere still held together, at the end of the tape’s tethers. Deupree’s work will not doubt enchant fans of Endless Summer by Fennesz or Riceboy Sleeps but adds a subtle yet profound level of conceptual interest to the palette of sweet guitar tones drifting in and out of focus. The quiet carries an uncertain unease on its sleeve; natural irregularities that betray the placid horizontal lines and move the pieces into a realm of fragile subtle ynot unlike the shimmering touch in the lines of stillness in Agnes Martin’s paintings: the lively and wholly varied beautiful imperfections open up mesmerizing vistas of timbral shifts and layers moving just out of phase. An intimate listen to get lost in time, time and time again.

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