Lawrence English — A Colour for Autumn
Throughout the 00:37:18 minutes of its duration (It says so on the cover print!) English paints long landscapes with gentle layers of sound as a background to musical developments that are sometimes as tiny and as soft the breeze, or other times potent and intense in the form of a storming electronic feedback. Electronic music is often seen as a cold medium, but English makes it sound warm and even alive with pulsating rhythms and countless layers of sound that shift one on top of the other.
The picture of dawn/dusk on the front cover tells exactly what you should expect from this album, with English changing the musical momentum, focusing on different parts of the landscape he draws. Starting with small movements that let you hear tiny occurrences and appreciate their short lived essence, he then goes climbing towards epic monuments and romantic sound pads, not forgetting to show also everywhere in between.
English also has two visitors on this album. Dean Roberts appears with ghostlike vocals on the first track "Droplet" and Christian Fennesz brings his electronic gear to support track number 4 – "The Surface of everything". Those who are blessed with sharp ears will notice the similarity between the latter track and Asva's song 'A game in hell, hard work in heaven'. This works, of course in favour of English and with or with-out the connection to Asva, "The surface of everything" is brilliant, and perhaps the best track on the album.
"A Colour for Autumn" ends in the way it begun, with the sound dying slowly; and more important – gracefully. The background landscapes have vanished only to leave soft whispers as this album's swan song. Maybe that's what it was all along. A soft, sometimes breathtaking' swansong, just before winter comes.