Celer — Inside The Head Of Gods

Here we have a new CD ep/ digital download from respected & highly prolific Us ambient project Celer (aka Will Long).  The twenty four minute work takes in a single piece, split into 10 parts. And what have here is slowly revolving, fading, and growing slice of organ based ambient.

The music from this release was commissioned for a exhibition of paintings by  Japanese-Filipino artist’s Taichi Kondo.  The exhibition was entitled “What’s my name”, and it took place in the Philippines during most of April this year. The one-man exhibition explored the idea of dualities as perceived by the senses and as part of imagining a new “provisional world”. Posing the question of identity to both self and the public, Kondo showed how diversity is produced through the merging and meeting of binary or dual forces: heaven and hell, creation and destruction, humanity and divinity, civilization and chaos, for instance. The paintings were rendered in a primitive style, underscoring the raw energy inherent in this process.

The CD comes in a colour card slip sleeve, and on it’s front  is one of Kondo’s primitive & raw paintings- this is a colourfully yet quite surreally busy affair taking in yellow eyed gorillas, woodland contained in a box. A yellow, green, and blue oil paint backing, and a series of uniformed yellow mixed with brown dabs.

The track here is based around a slow, drowsy, and fairly simple series of organ notes. These drift & ebb along in a very lulling & dreamy manner, and mark out a rising & dipping melody. Over the pieces length the organ dies back to barely audible, and then back up to simmering & brightly sustained. I guess you’d say this is ambient at it’s most simple, sparse & pared back- it very much feels like the classic & original interpretation of the form, where  the sound is purely there to sonically paint a room/space in a highly minimal way.  The piece seemingly has no beginning or end, but instead just drift back & forth between simmering rises & different levels of audibility- so as a result you could easily have this set on repeat.

I’ll have to admit that my first few plays of this left me a little under whelmed- as it just felt a little too stripped back & simple for its own good. But as I’ve played it a few more times, trying  not to concentrate too much on it, and let it become more background sound-  I’ve found it a bit more appealing.

So in summing up, I can’t say this is one of my favourite release by Celer as there doesn’t seem much depth or longevity, compared with some of his works. But as ambient in the classic form goes this is well realized & skilful made, and if you are looking for more background/ drifting ambience it’s worth a look.