Oliver Coates — Throb, Shiver, Arrow of Time

Cello player Oliver Coates is an experienced touring musician who released his debut solo recording in 2013.  Throb, Shiver, Arrow of Time is his latest work, released this year in 2024 on Rvng Intl.  

I am unfamiliar with his previous work, but this release is lushly cinematic, with warm, soulful melodies in folk and post-rock-derived tonalities.  The sounds range from unprocessed cello to heavily processed ambient granular mulch.  Skilful manipulation of the cello's tone, crisp production and wide dynamic range create a larger-than-life feeling throughout this recording.  Later in the other album, many other instruments become audible as well, sometimes with guests credited, and sometimes not.

There is no percussion, and so the whole album has a feeling of floating, and elastic meter, despite being quite tuneful.  The heavily processed sections can make the music seem vague, cloudlike and freeform, but when Coates' performances are more clearly audible, it is easy to hear his thoughtful skill in composition and performance.  It is something akin to Iasos' first album Inter-dimensional Music in that is part instrumental performance and part electronic soundscape, a direction also pursued by modern artists like Kyle Bobby Dunn.

I might describe the feeling throughout the album as hopeful, and romantic, with hints of melancholia.  A piece like the 8th track, "90" is very similar to Sigur Ros, with its muted chords at glacial tempo.  "Backprint Radiation" has a lovely flute performance, and the track "Living Branches (feat. chrysanthemum bear)" has heavenly Palestrina-esque choral harmonies.  These tracks reveal the traditional background to the style of this recording, at times making a stunning leap into classically inflected neofolk and post-industrial dimensions hinted at by Coil tracks like "Rosa Desidua" and "Chaostrophy".  This comparison is perhaps apt because Coates apparently did live performances with Genesis P-Orridge.

Though the album feels soothing and ambient, there is so much content here, and so many melodic ideas that progress one from another very rapidly, as the whole album is only forty minutes in length, with the average piece between roughly three minutes.  It is a strikingly emotional and tuneful release, which is nonetheless experimental and adventurous, bridging the worlds of traditional classical music and electronic avant-garde. For more info