Paul Taylor — Submerged

Submerged is a single-hour long-form journey into dark ambience from Paul Taylor (Slaves No More, Sutcliffe Jugend, Sutcliffe No More, Bodychoke, and Inertia). It moves from darkly and slowly sweeping string-like, to more subtle warped/ warbling and gloomy hovering.

The CD release comes presented in a green water-like hazed mini gatefold- on its front cover we have blended in with water picture of Mr Taylor, and inside close-up of reed shapes.

The single track featured here comes in at four seconds over the hour mark. It begins with fairly evenly flowing & sweeping darkly tinged string-like patterns- but as it progresses these start to slow, pan back, and reduce. As this occurs we move from more subtle warped dark harmonics, though locked bass purrs/ shudders, lightly seesawing mid-range eeriness, mixes of deep warbles, distant darting wails, general unease hover, climbing shimmer & space haze.

The track remains eventful/ shifting over its length- with Mr Taylor managing to shift through a fair few sonic emotions. I guess due to these largely subtle/ shifts this may put off fans of pure deep ambience, but I found the shifting rewarding & worthy.

Submerged is very different from the often more conventional/ extreme PE-touched sounds of Sutcliffe No More, and the other projects Mr Taylor has been involved with. So it’s nice he can move into calmer/ ambient sonic waters, and I’d certainly like to hear more of his work in this sound setting.