A hazy mysterious daydream of a release from Gogooo (Gabriel Hernandez) Produced by Gabriel Hernandez and Dale Lloyd. Guest appearances by Felicia Atkinson, Jez Riley French, Paw Grabowski and Dale Berning.
EARLABS (February) As meticulous with the artwork and packaging as he is with the music that he releases, Dale Lloyd has always strived to operate a topnotch, accessible music label. He’s steadfast and unequivocal about the two-fold commission of and/OAR: Firstly, release “unique and interesting environmental recordings and various kinds of avant-garde sound art that somehow utilizes environmental recording or recordings.” Secondly, make these sound works “as affordable as possible so that as many people as possible can afford to buy and listen to it.” The arrival of the new mOAR sublabel is one more tool committed to not only achieving these goals, but also aimed broadening the scope of and/OAR to encompass other interesting and comparable genres of electronic/experimental music.
When it’s done well and you can tell that it all comes from the heart, there’s something quite satisfying about listening to music that has been digitally sculptured from a sonic palette of environmental recordings, electronic sounds, music samples, and real instruments. Gabriel Hernandez‘s À Côté definitely fits this description. Consisting of nine compositions, the track lengths range from just under one minute to approaching six minutes. As a whole, À Côté delivers a rich collection of skillfully textured and varied sound works while, individually, each composition stands on its own, conveying its own distinctive aural message. Whether it be the wavering drone, subtly twittering electronics, and brittle noises of Ca Sera Là, the pastoral environmental recordings melding with Paw Grabowski’s gentle acoustic guitar playing on diary, or the every so fragile mesh of wind chimes and field recordings on L’ombre, each song has an intimate story to pass on. Especially poignant are Tu, Endormis and Petite Squelette which contain some restrained sensual vocals by Félicia Atkinson amongst the hazy ambiance of real instruments and environmental sounds.
For anyone who appreciates the artistry involved in blending environmental recordings, real instrumentation, and digital sounds/processing or to anyone that appreciates the and/OAR aesthetic and its tangents in general, I‘d recommend visiting the Klicktrack website and downloading À Côté in its entirety (along with the beautiful cover/artwork) for a very reasonable cost. For those that are more selective about what they listen to, the option of previewing and downloading individual tracks (also at reasonable price) is available. (Larry Johnson)
