Got a coupla newies on the ole Blackest Rainbow label this week and this be one of ’em. A brand new Celer album of previously unheard recordings which were recorded between 2006 and 2008. You kinda know what you’re getting with Celer these days. You either love ’em or hate ’em but to me they’re a benchmark of quality when it comes to ambience as there’s not really many other folks doing it much better. Though they have been known to dark it up like those 2 CD’s they did on Students of Decay which were kinda noisy for Celer. This album sounds lovely. It’s only been on for 5 minutes and I’m into it…. beautiful drones which are both tranquil and warm sounding…. it reminds me a wee bit of Discourses of The Withered which I was only listening to the other night. This one features field recordings from Katmandu (sounds like a busy hectic market or something) and it adds an extra dimension. It’s a very dense sounding record but one I think you’ll love if you’re fan of Celer. Excellent!
Outstanding side of enigmatic ambience from Celer, recorded between december 2006 and july 2008. Added to their usual, almost incapacitating layers of drone and gaseous textures are field recordings made in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2002, providing a visceral, bustling counterpoint to the elegiac sensitivity of their harmonic blurs fashioned from cello, violin, pipe organ and various bits of electronics and post-production enhancements. The compositions are typically austere and minimal yet thick with evocative dream tones and that beautifully fragile feel for inert melody which makes time feel like it’s about to stop. Perhaps the most intangible yet integral element of these recordings is the shifting sense of spaces opening and closing like an undulating topography, articulated especially well in the vivid contrasts between the field recordings and their organically textured tones. Stunningly immersive stuff, pressed on 140gm virgin vinyl and housed in thick, old style tip-on hardback jackets. Limited to 500 copies.
– Boomkat