Keon Holtkamp – Motion (Thrill Jockey)
LP/DL
Out Now
One half of
Mountains, Koen Holtkamp, release his fourth album.
Last year’s
re-release of the album Mountains Mountains Mountains served to confirm what a
great album it was and to further cement the talent of Mountains
themselves. Motion, the fourth solo
outing for Koen Holtkamp shows that there is still more in the bag.
Using both
analogue and digital sounds, Holtkamp creates mammoth soundscapes with an
incredibly pure and clinical sound, creating his own genre of
prog-ambient! It’s great stuff, each of the
four tracks here builds from nothing to huge masses of sound, and it’s a
testament to his talent that not one of those sounds ever gets lost. Each sound is added and layers quickly form
to create some quite beautiful pieces.
Vert starts quietly
with sparkling blips and bleeps and is soon accompanied by a sprawling background
guitar giving a sense of enormity to the track.
New synthesized sounds swirl and echo around the guitar taking the track
higher and higher.
There are
clever expanses of space on Motion, with Crotales electronics are joined by an
upright bass which has been computer generated making a rich, almost ancient atmosphere,
and ‘atmosphere’ is a key word for this album.
It’s all about nothingness and subtlety which creates head-room and time
for contemplation and thought.
Album opener, Between
Visible Things always threatens to break into huge crashing percussion, but the
urge is quelled in moments of genius.
Synthetic sounds sound perfectly natural with whirring taps and the
occasional voice or animal sound shrieking out.
Again the track builds gracefully.
Ending with
the twenty-one minute opus Endlessness, you are enveloped in a journey of sound
which seemingly passes much quicker that its length. True originality is here in enormous amounts
and Motion really deserves several listens to fully appreciate its true beauty.
8/10
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