English, Lawrence / Yamamoto, Ai

Plateau

Label: Phonostatique Country: Australia

"Over the past three years Ai Yamamoto and Lawrence English have been exploring the ideas and linkages between field recordings, texture and minimal electronics. Occasionally crossing paths around Australia and sharing the odd live performance together, the duo realised they shared a strong interest in the character of sound and the creation of sonic works that carry a strong sense of suggested narrative and memory (both invented and real).

On Plateau, they create evocative and generously textured passages of sound that mask gentle field recordings collected across the globe including Yamamoto's home prefecture of Nara, Japan where English also spent time. Considered In worldwide as the "Bible" of modern, cutting edge and new music and in publication now for over 20 years is the U.K. monthly magazine, The Wire, here is what they had to say upon review of Plateau in the February 2006 edition:

A man of many collaborations, Lawrence English joins fellow Australian sound artist Ai Yamamoto for Plateau, a somber album of impressionist fragments connected more by mood and ambience than by movement and composition. As in his previous work with Tujiko Noriko DJ Olive and Philip Samartzis, English applies a considerable amount of DSP-distilled polish to the ensuing sounds, whether they are textured field recordings, rasping tam-tams or post-Eno dronescapes. Considering that Plateau jumps from tonefloat shimmer to wintry Durutti Column guitar flourishes to a music box palindrome and back to a bout of ominous minimalism, English's production serves to encase the entire album with a consistent aura. Plateau's numerous stylistic transitions and melodic interludes never veer far from a compelling if fragile melancholy.

-Phonostatique Records