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Loula Yorke has not descended from weak women. The Book of Commonplace (60:00) embodies the distinctive world view that her musical methods reveal. An artist, as opposed to being involved in mere content creation, Yorke has found just the right tone to convey the wandering thoughts, perspectives, delights and distractions of the mind into a sprawling, spacey audio form. Finding new feelings from familiar frequencies the two extended tracks fill the listening area with what may be described as realizations in the quiet accumulation of time. Extending from found sounds and extra-musical materials to declared drones and shapely synthesized notes this release makes inroads well into an experimental realm. Rising gradually out of silence shimmering charges flicker, then gently breathe above the rushing sonic stream. Drawn along by outsized textures this etheric articulation of the psyche swirls on the musician's energy. Subtle samples give way to crystal smooth timbres as cloudless chords rise and then hold like a penetrating frost. Electronics scatter within sunbeam dreams, then migrate to a dimensionless parameter of bliss kissed atmospherics and inward turning time zones. As twilight swaths of ambient color hover above, cycling arpeggios blend together to mask the many armed sparks of the air. Locating the dark center of a restless imagination the slow-motion sections subside, and ask us to sit through passages of raw spiritual poetry. Others in this field produce work so aspirational that it feels like it is from the future. Yet, here The Book of Commonplace has been inspired by whatever thoughts and moments are transpiring currently during the present and profound now. It will be interesting to field the diverse reactions to this sort of voltage controlled journaling. Some will feel that it is disruptive or unsettling, while others will perceive it as beautiful and transcendent - in this reminder that a remarkable cosmos of experience lives, often hidden, inside and each and every one of us.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 19 June 2025 |
