- Following last year's Wysing Forest LP, a string of smaller projects have shown Luke Abbott's new modular synth method in a better light. This collaboration with Portico Quartet saxophonist Jack Wyllie follows Abbott's gorgeous film soundtrack, Music For A Flat Landscape, and precedes a further collaborative project on his own Buffalo Temple label. Like the soundtrack, its success lies in presenting Abbott's sparse, improvisational style in bite-sized form. It also benefits from a stronger melodic component, thanks to Wyllie's expressive but subtle playing.
Having worked together at France's Baleapop festival, the pair excerpted these three tracks from a longer session at Abbott's studio. The short-and-sweet "Isaka" most clearly displays their method: a brief but gorgeous communion between Wyllie's breathy sax and Abbott's chords, it sounds like one of those moments of telepathy that only comes after hours of careful improv.
Two more sprawling tracks bookend the EP. Opener "Xantanko," built on one soft-edged synth chord, takes a while to get going but arrives when Wyllie starts to ruck up folds of looped melody. "Exteberri" is more emotionally direct, with Abbott venturing a fuller chord progression and Wyllie wading deep into the reverb pool. Abbott name-checks "meditation music" and New Age MP3 blog Sounds Of The Dawn in relation to this project, but when Wyllie's melodies ring out in clear, reverberating space, the effect is more like the ECM label at its most devotional.
TracklistA1 Xantako
A2 Isaka
B1 Etxeberri