Lawrence English - Kiri No Oto

Lawrence English
Kiri No Oto
(07.2008, Touch)
Verdict = Quite literally an auditory fog

Lawrence English, label head of Australia’s Room 40 imprint, has let his most recent solo album loose on the equally superb Touch label. Perhaps it is just a means of rest to go through Touch or perhaps a general nod to the label’s similar knack for progressive sound artists, either way Kiri No Oto adds an incredible cog to the Touch catalog and is deserving of a well won vacation because English is at the top of his game here. Listening to Kiri No Oto is as brooding, hazy and indistinct as walking through an endless mist of varying shades of grey. English must have been well aware of this when naming the album seeing as how its Japanese translation is something like ‘sound of fog.’ You’ll just have to listen to discover how incredibly apt that title is. English works with a veritable wall of sound that is simply awash with brick after brick of slowly oscillating white noise. Extremely layered and smartly composed, tracks like “White Spray” and “Allay” break through the standard muted drones with surges of industrial squalor. The basis of the sounds manipulated here is a whole 'nother story as well with the building blocks of Kiri No Oto coming from both found sounds and instruments of far reaching locals from Japan to Poland that English harvested through his own travels. English may not have the same name recognition as contemporaries like Tim Hecker and Fennesz, but Kiri No Oto is definitely a statement that stands with the likes of Harmony in Ultraviolet and Endless Summer. Just check the album cover, it sounds like that.

-Mr. Thistle

Lawrence English - "Organs at Sea"