Constellation Tatsu brings together two names in ambient music divided by massive swaths of land (Celer in Japan, Forest Management in Chicago) but united over the impact of the film and novel versions of The Mosquito Coast. Landmarks was recorded separately and assembled in traded session between the two artists and it captures the humid tension of Peter Weir’s film particularly well. The collaboration is stark and gorgeous, cut with field recordings and a knife’s edge balance of the overwhelming madness that lies as the heart of the story they’ve chosen to interpret. The two artists blend their styles with John Daniel (Forest Management) thickening the sound with an omnipresent hiss that feels tactile, as if its threading its way through the listener’s ears. Will Long (Celer), meanwhile, adds an element of tension and emotion that stretches a bit further than his collaborator is often willing to go.

That they lean on each other’s strengths makes this a crossover album in high esteem. Each artist brings their brush to the table and adds without overshadowing the other’s strokes. The result is an ambient album with a heavy emotional heart that grips the listener hard and leaves a mark. The idea of a retroactive soundtrack to a film that’s more than thirty years old seems itself like a thankless task, but whatever lit the inspiration in their shared experiences with the impact of the film appears to have wrought an album of claustrophobic dread that can stand on its own for listeners who’ve never once encountered the tale of man at odds with madness and its impact on his family. The two have crafted and album that’s haunting, heavy and oddly spectral. It shines while succeeding in its attempts to suck all of the air from the room.

Anyone acquainted with the respective discographies of Celer, the long-time project of Tokyo-based Will Long, and Forest Management, otherwise known as American ambient producer John Daniel, will come to their first collaboration with a fairly informed idea of what to expect. Such expectations won’t be disconfirmed by the cassette release, though it does contain a few surprises. Using tape machines, loops, and computers, the two have produced an audio re-imagining of The Mosquito Coast, the 1981 novel by Paul Theroux that Peter Weir made into a film five years later starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, and River Phoenix. In simple terms, the story presents Ford as inventor Allie Fox, who, disenchanted with American consumerism and culture, abandons the United States with his family for what he hopes will be a simpler and happier life in the jungles of Central America; needless to say, things don’t turn out quite as planned for the patriarch and his family.

Presented in fourteen parts, Landmarks offsets minimal ambient soundscapes of the kind associated with both Long and Daniel with vignette-like pieces (three each less than a minute long), and it’s the contrast between the two, as well as the variety and unpredictability of the shorter tracks, that makes for interesting listening. To that end, a serene, ten-minute opening exercise in ambient drift gives way to a three-minute evocation of the heat-drenched jungle environment, one replete with chirping birds and foreboding drum accents. Later shifts see a brief snippet of spoken dialogue lifted from the film, a minute-long swirl of shimmering vapours, and a hissing soundscape filled with clattering noises and field recordings-styled details sandwiched between the rumbling ambient lull of “Indistinguishable From Magic” and the billowing, Gas-styled hydraulics of “Embera.” Ford’s voice briefly appears in “5,000 Feet Under the Surface” to solidify the connection between the release and source material, while an ambient soundscape such as the beatific closer “Rights of the Idea or a Machine” puts some degree of distance between them.

One guesses that Long and Daniel were drawn to the project idea because of their own nostalgic feelings about another time and a way of life, admittedly one partly imagined, different from our own. Whatever it was that attracted them to it, it’s resulted in a long-form, concept-styled recording that’s considerably more engaging for being so abundant in contrast.

Celer (Will Long) and Forest Management (John Daniel): two names that continue to appear across a variety of establish labels, who have produced numerous works I not only admire, but draw significant influence from. The two collaborate together for the first time in what proves to be a gorgeous merging of two notable names within the contemporary ambient scene. ‘Landmarks’ is lengthy and contains a vast amount of sounds and texture that show off what the two artists are capable of as individuals and when combined as a single expressive entity. The opening track, ‘7° 10° 77° 83°’ (of which a simple search reveals the location for ‘Street 77’ in Cairo, Egypt), spreads an expanding bed of rounded processed tones that make way for the slightly degraded and well-worn musical textures that fade in as the track progresses. Just how far the contents of ‘Landmarks’ varies is immediately apparent upon the entrance of the second track ‘The first steps onto their soil’, that alerts the listener to the presence of vibrant wildlife and thumping percussion. The album is constructed around a sonic reimagining of ‘The Mosquito Coast’ – a novel and film of the same name by Paul Theroux and Peter Weir respectively; it is a soundtrack based on both Long and Daniel’s interpretation of the original material of inspiration. The warmth and ambiguity of sound sources that both artists achieve with great care is showcased in fine form, and leaves a lasting impression on the listener that urges further exploration into each artist’s existing discographies.

On ne présente plus Celer, désormais le projet solo de Will Long, dont nous parlons ici pour la dixième fois alors qu’il sort environ un nouvel album par mois. Après Akagi qu’il sortait sur Two Acorns, son propre label, on le retrouve cette fois sur la jeune structure américaine Sequel, fondée fin 2015.

Pour qui connait un peu les productions de Will Long, disons que ce nouvel album est logiquement dans la lignée des précédentes et on se demandera même comment il pourrait en être autrement tellement le musicien est constant depuis maintenant plus de 10 ans. Pour les autres, disons que Celer produit une musique ambient minimale, souvent rapprochée du drone.

Alors qu’il nous avait habitué aux longues pièces, Celer nous surprend un peu ici en plaçant de courts interludes entre les pièces ambient qu’on lui connait. Ainsi l’album débute avec la flûte d’un musicien de rue et des bruits de pas, posant une ambiance orientale sur ce From The Bus To The Corner, Past The Hypostyle Halls. On est à Hammamet alors que Will Long est revenu sur les traces d’un grand oncle qui s’est noyé 31 ans plus tôt au large de la ville tunisienne. Un peu plus tard on trouve des extraits d’un discours de Thomas Sankara probablement capté sur une télévision, l’ambiance sonore de la côte, le calme d’un hôtel avant que la télé ne s’allume, ou encore le bruit de la mer tout au long de The Fear To Touch The Sand.

Pièces principales et interludes s’enchaînent, formant presque une seule et même composition d’un peu moins d’une heure. Les nappes sous toutes leurs formes occupent logiquement une place importante sur ce disque, à commencer par le lancinant Spindles And Fires sur lequel plusieurs strates mélodiques se croisent de fort belle manière. Sol Azur en reprend le principe avec des tonalités un peu plus graves, mais surtout particulièrement douces, soyeuses, comme du velours, avec une mélodie répétitive.

Sur In All Deracinated Things, on retrouve plus particulièrement le style du musicien, avec un son plus dense, des oscillations moins amples, rendant l’ensemble plus statique. On sera ensuite un peu surpris par Base Haze et son style atypique avec un drone extrêmement discret qui semble parfois être noyé dans un souffle, ou le bruit de la mer qui habite l’interlude suivant.

L’album se termine sur le bien nommé Terminal Points. Le ton est ici beaucoup plus grave, mélodique mais sombre tout en restant purement ambient. Ce dernier titre fait alors écho à la fin tragique du parent de l’artiste et on devine en arrière plan le va et vient de la mer.

Si parfois on se dit que Celer joue un peu la facilité, on trouvera qu’il essaye ici d’évoluer un peu, tant dans la construction de l’album que dans son approche mélodique. Une excellente surprise.