Luminance Ratio/Stev​e Roden — Split
Luminance Ratio’s piece, “Reoccuring Dreams” is a short piece of considerate group playing. The ensemble has four members, concentrating mainly on guitars and electronics; though they also deploy percussion and “junk” items. The track itself is a slow drift through dream-like textures and shifts, with tentative guitar, whistling tones, controlled feedback and somewhat isolated cymbal accenting. The overall sound is the sum of lots of small elements - there is a sense of drone, but its not remotely monolithic or uniformly linear. Some of these elements - particularly the junk ones, some of which approximate saxophone squawks - are abrasive and spiky; though without ever overwhelming the warm tone of the piece. The guitars provide the main melodic colouring, and to continue with that idea, its very much a picture made using watercolours - hazy, indistinct and fleeting. This incorporeal atmosphere, though, is contrasted by the overtly “academic” playing; which sets up a nice tension.
Turning to Steve Roden’s side, we find a complimentary offering to Luminance Ratio’s. A slow, lurching song with breathy falsetto vocals obscured by reverb. Conjured out of “field recordings, guitar, voice”, “Marvelous Is Flairs” is a more straightforward proposition than “Reoccuring Dreams”; but at the same time, this accentuates the attention to detail and processing from Roden. Driven by a distanced, percussive thud, the song’s melodic base is a queasy, bowed guitar drone; in between these, electronic squiggles dance - moving around the stereo-field. Present throughout the whole track is a lovely crackling noise - the field recording element - which adds a distinct colour and texture to proceedings. The tentative vocal sings unintelligible lyrics - again, there’s that indistinct, fleeting quality; which serves as a theme for the seven inch.
This is an effective coupling. I still need to be convinced that the seven inch format is the most sympathetic medium for music such as Luminance Ratio’s - the track fades out where I would rather it continues - but putting the two tracks side by side helps alleviate this. They play off each other rather well: the Roden piece helps the seven inch to be more digestible, whilst Luminance Ratio establish a definite “high-brow” tone for both tracks. To some extent, combining the pieces gives a sense of what they’re both doing: essentially, “academic” or “high-brow” takes on the psychey, space rock drones of bands like Charalambides or Labradford.