Un disque, un poème. Il n’en faut parfois pas davantage pour semer le trouble et captiver bien au-delà de la simple musique. Ainsi Evaporate & Wonder, nouvel album du couple immortel formé par Danielle Marie Baquet et William Thomas Long, interpelle-t-il mille fois plus que la cohorte de nouveautés labellisées ambient. Déjà le titre du disque, belle manière d’envisager le corps, l’esprit et sa petite musique. Ensuite le son, d’une beauté folle, aux confins de l’immobilisme et de la disparition. En témoignent ces deux magnifiques pièces drapées de calme, de souffle et d’éternel. De fait, on y reviendra souvent, comme s’il s’agissait d’une source de vie. Certes, il y a toujours eu chez Celer quelque chose que les autres n’avaient pas – une sensibilité, une force et une poésie qui tranchent avec l’ordinaire glacé de ce type d’entreprise. Depuis la tragique disparition de Danielle Marie Baquet, Celer est cependant plus encore qu’un projet singulier et passionnant. A l’image du travail de Richard Skelton, il s’agit désormais de vivre avec et sans, d’entretenir le souvenir de l’être cher et de prolonger la vie comme on peut – avec des mots, de la musique et beaucoup d’émotion retenue qui rappellent ici plus qu’ailleurs toute la grandeur de l’existence.

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Four seconds of static start ‘Evaporate and Wonder’, another release from the secretive ambient project Celer, comprised of the late Danielle Marie-Baquet and William Thomas Long, before the slow-motion descent begins. Recorded in California in 2009, and released on March 13th, ‘Evaporate and Wonder’ is comprised of two sidelong compositions, and whilst these can be immediately distinguished from their more obviously sparse and glacial predecessors, the overall effect still gels with the pair’s labyrinthian back catalogue, which is identified as being amongst the most well loved and respected within the genre.

Although upon hearing that the source material was limited to improvised synthesisors and field recordings one may initially begin to imagine Celer’s soundscapes to be decidedly ‘split’ down some half-way mark, both elements are in fact merged seamlessly, making listening to any individual record decidedly similar to slowly being pulled around by tides deep under the surface of the ocean. Whilst the heartbreaking backdrop to Celer’s releases post-July of 2009 does of course add a certain melancholy to their output, this isn’t to say it is in any way reliant upon this to impact upon the listener – this rather makes the recordings stronger in their emotive foundation. Long’s title to this particular section of their work, redemptive as it reads, seems to encapsulate both the artistic and emotional bond of two people more clearly than many other releases of a similar ilk.

Opening track ‘Bedded in Shallow Blades’ immediately brings to mind the Celer of yesteryear, such as static-laden ‘Emotion’, yet still shows a definite development in sound that was so tragically cut off before reaching its apex, and is only being heard now, several years on. Deep sub-bass throbs glide to and from the listener through foggy notes, played at such a volume that they solidify, yet far away enough to remain as faint echoes of what they were, and walls of malleable tones. Indeed the sounds on ‘Evaporate and Wonder’ are, somewhat counter to what the former half of the title suggests, denser than ever before, yet still not claustrophobic in any way. Celer’s compositions still manage to retain a certain distance, as if coming from everywhere at once, and so don’t overwhelm the listener as other groups’ works so often can.

Continuing on in respect to the quite obviously dual nature of the record, B-side ‘Repertoire of Dinless Shifts’, again far from what the title suggests, lifts the listener from the bottom of the ocean that ‘Bedded in Shallow Blades’ finally planted us on, but with one only realising as such as you begin to drift away. With the titles of the material being the only input that Long has had since the initial recording sessions were done, Celer releases are beginning to look, if not brighter, more accepting of the decidedly ill-hand the group, and Long, was dealt, with this release especially being a far cry from 2008’s ‘I Love You So Much I Can’t Even Title This (The Light That Never Goes Out Went Out)’.

Saying much more about ‘Evaporate and Wonder’, although infinitely possible, become irrelevant. This is because simply labeling Celer’s releases as anything from ‘Drone’ to ‘Minimalist Electronica’ to simply ‘Electronic atmospheres’, as well as trying to aptly describe them, cannot do them justice. The simultaneously ethereal yet deeply emotive creations of the late Danielle Marie-Baquet and William Thomas Long are ones that simply must be listened to, time and time again.

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If you are in any way familiar with ambient music, Celer  will probably be familiar too. The discography boasts about 80 titles, most (if not all) of these well worth the listen.

Celer started out as a husband-and-wife duo in 2005. After the tragic death of Danielle Baquet-Long in 2009 (she died of heart failure at the age of 27), Will Long has released music they had previously recorded together, as well as music he recorded later.

“Evaporate and Wonder” was originally recorded in may, 2009, only a few months before Danielle’s death. The source material was limited to improvised synthesizer and field recordings, but two tracks (about 20 minutes each) have all the warm aesthetic qualities that have become the Celer–trademark from the very beginning. A sound well-balanced and harmonically pleasant – ‘utterly devoid of rough edges’.

The basic material for “Tightrope”  was recorded in November 2010 in Tokyo while Will was touring with Yui Onodera.  The main difference compared to “Evaporate and Wonder” is that a lot of different instruments were involved in this recording: “piano, television, synthesizers, fire crackling, pipe organ, eating rice, guitar, medicine drip buzzer,…’ which are just a few. All source pieces are layered and mixed on top of each other, and presented in a 70 minute continuous collage.

The variety of source makes this a somewhat more cinematographic album compared to “Evaporate..”, but it still has the same unmistakeable trademark, the same comfortable, timeless, immersive sound.

With an output rate like this, I do wonder if there’s anyone around that can name a Celer album title when hearing a particular piece from it. It’s hard to keep track; new album titles will probably be released before I finish writing this post. But, as said before, the really incredible thing is that all titles are worth listening, to say the least. A thing that cannot be said of many artists!
Together, they are presenting the kind of continuous ambient atmosphere that somehow compares to the sound of nature: it’s basically the same sort of sound every time, yet it never gets boring.

“In the end, they’re all collected, unplanned memories”

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“evaporate (verb): 1. to transition from a liquid state into a gaseous state. 2. (figuratively) to disappear.” Music can’t really be said to disappear, because it is never really there, visually speaking. And yet, some pieces of music are less there than others. The claims made by Celer’s music on being there seem more tenuous than most, as if it were hanging on to presence by a thread, pulling towards silence. The music of Stephan Mathieu similarly lacks thereness, yet leaves the listener in no doubt that it WAS. Celer’s music does not even have this. A wisp of smoke.

“wonder (verb): 1. to ponder something.” If the music imposes itself lightly, the listener’s thoughts are free to wander. A whole ten minutes or more from either of these two long tracks can slip by without being noticed. The warm, quiet sounds encourage meandering, drifting, daydream. And yet, when attention returns to the music, it is to find that nothing has changed – the puzzle remains unsolved. The door still stands open, and what awaits on the other side of the threshold remains to be seen. This tips wondering into wonder.

“sublimate (verb): 1. To change state from a solid to a gas (or from a gas to a solid) without passing through the liquid state.” Go straight, do not pass go, do not receive £200. Because it happens very, very fast, this change, so fast you missed it the first time (and you thought the music was slow!). In the blink of an eye – vapour. It is warm and damp against your face, your ears. You could not take hold of it, any more than you could your own shadow. You will not be whistling it in the shower. It is fast. Yet afterwards something lingers in the atmosphere for longer than the memory of a catchy tune. “2. To purify or refine a substance through such a change of state.” To touch, to almost touch, the sublime. Until a breeze blows in through the still-open door and billows it away.

“Evaporate and Wonder” is released on Experimedia in limited 12” LP and download editions. Dictionary definitions courtesy of Wiktionary.org.

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Evaporate and Wonder is an ember of an ember, an echo of an echo, a ghost of a ghost, barely there yet fully present.  This slowly meditative pair of tracks has all the power of a leaf floating down a lazy river, which is to say not much, or a great deal, depending on one’s perspective.  Could one watch such a leaf, hopping shore to shore, stone to stone to trace its progress?  Or arching backwards, to its position on the tree, its browning, its full-fledged greenery, its first appearance as a shoot, invisible veins edging toward the sun?  ”Is it easier to begin or to end?” asks Dani in the poem on which the album is based: her words, her presence kept alive by her husband on this tonal recording in such a way as to make one ask, what if you didn’t have to choose?  What if one were perpetually beginning and ending in a way that erased the dividing line?  When Dani writes of water spilled like a life, she leaves readers with an enduring question:  ”Was it worth it?”  Will Long’s continuing answer is yes – it was, it is.  He’s passed beyond prowess and love, and is now in a nether zone of remembrance and recycling, providing what is in essence an evaporated recording that inexplicably beats with life.

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Some releases are as much art objects as recordings, a perfect example being this beautiful seven-inch affair from Will Long (aka Celer) and Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek), which is worth purchasing on grounds of presentation alone. Long obtained the artwork for the project in a nostalgia shop in Jimbocho, Tokyo, after which, in true collaborative spirit, Zuydervelt designed the sleeve. Adding to the release’s allure, the hand-numbered edition of 250 comes with a download that includes two videos by Marco Douma. How did the release come about? After performing together in Tokyo in November 2010, the two began a long-distance file exchange last fall (between Tokyo and Rotterdam) that drew upon hours of material and resulted in the two tracks issued.

The A-side’s “Maastunnel” (the tunnel that connects the banks of the Nieuwe Maas in Rotterdam) achieves a lovely balance between musical elements and field recordings in augmenting softly whistling waves of shimmering, Celer-like serenity with sounds of water gently lapping ashore, faint traffic noise, and assorted creaks and industrial noise. The result is a masterfully controlled meditation that leaves a strong impression, no matter its brevity. The sense of wonderment carries over to “Mt. Mitake” (a mountain to the west of Tokyo), where glassy tones chime softly and induce a state of calm in the listener. Some degree of turbulence emerges halfway through, however, and the whole thing begins to feel as if it’s being smothered by a dark, suffocating cloud of dust and grime.

Their respective personae are so well established—not counting the collaboration, Discogs lists (at the time of this writing) sixty-nine by Celer and ninety-nine by Machinefabriek—that it comes as a bit of a shock to discover they’d not collaborated prior to this release. Regardless, though the single’s two pieces weigh in at slightly less than ten minutes, they’re an exquisite pair nonetheless, and certainly suggest that some further, more extensive collaboration wouldn’t be unwelcome.

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Our Phil tends to review most of the Celer records we get in because he can’t get enough of the drifty stuff, but this week he’s decided that for the purpose of balance someone else should have a go. Two other people, in fact, since this isn’t the only Celer release this week, so I guess there’ll be another one coming soon from Brian or the Business Lady. If nothing else, you certainly have to admire Mr Long’s workrate. Also, these kinds of records are notoriously difficult to review because despite the great beauty on display, it’s a beauty of a fairly constant and unchanging kind. On this LP, the source material is limited to improvised synths and field recordings, and what we’re left with are glassy, shimmering swells of concordant high and mid end drone that twinkle and murmur and ease in and out, teasing you into a healing state of calm. That’s what happens on this record and there’s not much else to say about it except it’s right up there with Celer’s finest work and super limited (as usual) and comes with a download and chances are you knew you’d like it before you started reading this review anyway.

Большинство ранних релизов «Celer» выходило в виде «приватных изданий» – музыканты записывали «болванки» маленьким тиражом, вручную оформляли их, напыляя по трафарету краску на накатку и картонные обложки, короче, творили по всем канонам D.I.Y. Позднее оказалось, что интерес к музыке дуэта уже не ограничивается домашними заготовками, слушатели, собравшие за последние годы солидную коллекцию из дисков, кассет и пластинок «Celer», захотели узнать, что же было записано на тех, первых, явно не предназначенных для широкой аудитории дисках. «Sunlir» увидел свет в 2006 году, по сей день доступен цифровой релиз, который можно найти в сети. Так что может возникнуть вопрос, почему именно за этот материал «зацепился» испанский лейбл «CONV», хотя, конечно, этот вопрос сейчас так и останется без ответа. Да и в любом случае – спасибо.

«Sunlir» каноничен для творчества американской пары периода «середины нулевых», когда Уильям и Дэниель Лонг использовали для создания  произведений простой прием, оттачивая его раз за разом и, в конце концов, возведя многие, полученные таким образом вещи, на уровень шедевров цифрового минимализма. Прием прост – режутся короткие сэмплы из звуков пианино, трубы, гитары, скрипки, или, как в данном случае, оркестровых партий, затем они закольцовываются и максимально замедляются. Из этого аморфного, порой бесформенного и часто нервозно гудящего от всех совершенных манипуляций материала авторы собирают свои сновидческие зарисовки, в которых на протяжении долгого времени все словно замирает на одном месте, оставляя слушателя наедине с долгим эхом. При этом посреди статических полей и наплывающих со всех сторон прозрачных, слабо колышущихся звуковых волн, тонких вибраций, легкой дрожи потревоженной тишины все время что-то движется, не останавливаясь ни на секунду. Так передать «неподвижное движение», наверное, могут только «Celer». У них получается настоящий эмбиент, тот самый фон, на который можно не обращать внимания, но который существует здесь и сейчас наравне с вами. Простота формы и содержания, открывающая новые границы хрупкого звукового мира.

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It takes just a few words to explicit our impressions in front of Levitation And Breaking Points, re-released by Dale Lloyd’s And/OAR two years after the original triple 3-inch edition. Describing the mere exteroception – as always in corresponding circumstances – is an intention that ultimately results in the typical fatuousness attached to any similar attempt when one listens to uncrystallized masses of sound rich in shifts of imaginary harmonies and ethereal chromaticity. Perhaps we could do better referring to “presence” and “absence”, for these two opposites lie – here more than anywhere else in Celer’s recorded output – at the basis of the pervading sense of noetic improvement and corporeal liquefaction perceived during the protraction of the experience (needless to say, this disc is a natural nominee for the “infinite repeat” mode). The richness of psychological phenomenologies remains the most valid point of discussion for this type of outing; both Will and Dani Long worked in the ambit of music therapy, so they were probably able to predict certain effects on a listener’s involuntary cognition since the beginning. What the miserable reviewer must do in such a circumstance is, once again, stressing the need of separating who operates in this area with a background of genuine education and sentience from those who join the bandwagon without having a clue about the grandness of these issues. Celer were in search of truths while in exploration, and this record shows their absolute commitment to orbiting towards spheres that – hypothetically – any individual gifted with serious inner means and a modicum of volition can reach. Especially by remaining silent.

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“What’d he look like?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t lift his head up. He could’ve been… just anybody.”

A disembodied voice, a tape snippet, inquires, on Maastunnel, the A Side to this auspicious pairing of these two giants of drone. ‘Maastunnel/Mt. Mitake’ came about after Machinefabriek & Celer played a show together in Tokyo in 2010, and was released to coincide with an upcoming European tour, so we will most likely hear more from these combined heads.

Both Machinefabriek & Celer are hyper-prolific, nigh-on legendary in the ambient/drone/field recordings microcosm, so what happens when they get together? That’s why i started with that quote, it is a fine example of the egolessness of both artist’s work, an almost slavish devotion to the ‘sound’, the ‘work’. Tasteful in the extreme, you can hear the individual spirit of each, the squeaky field recordings that are Machinefabriek’s hallmark, the drifting, cloud-like melodies Celer is known for. The overall effect achieved, is a sonic world, an auditory hallucination, with Machinefabriek creating the space for Celer to score, events unfolding, humans interacting with the inanimate.

‘Maastunnel’ is the more pastoral of the two, which is funny as its named after a tunnel, but its tinkling, splashing water give a sense of the outdoors. ‘Mt. Mitake’, named after the mountain to the west of Tokyo, is a more sci-fi affair, think Vangelis, think Klaus Schulze – dreamy, futuristic, floating. The pair make for more colorful drones and inner-visions than the monochromatic blur often found in the more industrial cadre of this style.

‘Maastunnel/Mt. Mitake’ is an exercise in restraint, in good taste. They show respect for one another, the music, and the listener. The whole shebang clocks in at a scant ten-minutes, which means you will spend a lot of time hitting play, or flipping over this little gem. Poring over its intricacies. Makes for pleasant company in the morning, if you want to keep that dreamy vibe going. I’m looking forward to hearing more from these two.

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