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After the release, Hearing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears, Allen returns to form with his new album, Pearls. On these works, he focuses on creating sound for the sake of sound and crafts a dreamy and transcendent world of modern ambient music. These compositions find Allen's musical voice at its most introspective, calmest, and soft spoken. Over the span of four patient movements, Pearls explores broad existential landscapes which expand and contract through a world of majestic textures and morphing melodies. With this work of forward-thinking digital minimalism, Allen has gone deep inside his sound's core, reduced meaning to the fundamentals, and returned with unlocked beauty.  Reviews: The Steinberg Principle, Euan McMeeken Had I put together a list of my top EPs of 2010 then this one would, without doubt, top the lot. I’d even rate it ahead of ‘Riser’ by Fieldhead, which, if you know this blog, pretty much sums up how I feel about this piece of music. And I’ve only just recently received it as well. Which, again, says a lot about the impact that this music has had on me. On a slight tangent, but bare with me, Satellite for Entropy is a blog, which I have grown very fond of reading. I think the writing on that blog is something truly special. So much so, that on a number of occasions I have found myself not writing about a piece of music simply because nothing I could write would come close to describing the music in the way that Angie has already. Take ‘A Young Persons Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn’ for example. It’s a piece of music I had planned to write about because it’s excellent. That was until I stumbled upon Angie’s post about the record. So, instead of me trying to express what is so important about that record, I suggest that you go here and enjoy her words instead. However, I am using the words from that piece of writing to try and bring clarity to my own thoughts and allow me to express what it is about this particular piece of music that just leaves me a little breathless. And that’s exactly what it does. Leaves me breathless. You know that way when you’re watching a really beautiful film, reading a wonderful book or even at a concert and you’re scared to blink or breathe in case you miss a single moment? Well that’s how I feel when I listen to this record. It’s about 40 minutes long, it sucks you in and it is over before you know it or want it to be. All good music should be. When all the component parts come together perfectly I think you should feel like you’ve been on a wonderful journey. And more than that, you should feel that the breathlessness you’ve felt; the fear to blink or breathe or move, has not been a success. Like you’ve missed something important. And the first thing you should want to do is go back to the start and listen all over again so that this time you take it all in and miss not one second of beauty. I think it’s the subtlety in ambient music which brings it to life. It’s a bit like writing a story in many ways (maybe). You have to control the pace of a piece. You have to find the right rhythm at the right time. You have to draw the listener in and keep them in. And when the word ‘minimalism’ is involved it really becomes all about the subtle moments throughout a piece. I’ve talked about it before. Ambient music tends to set a stage and build the characters as it goes along. Cory Allen, in 4 songs has created a perfect piece of ambience that starts slowly, builds to a wonderful crescendo on, my, stand out track ‘Isozaki Clouds’ and finishes in a lovely warm haze. ‘Pearls’ is a masterful piece of music by a young American who you really should check out if you get a moment. And you should check out his record label Quiet Design also because they are releasing some wonderful things at the moment. My next review will confirm that for you. Static Sound, Pascal Savy Cory Allen is an avant-garde minimalist composer based in Austin, USA, who has been releasing music since 2007, mainly on his label Quiet Design, which he co-owns and curates with Mike Vernusky. His highly produced and often subtle work has been featured by media organisation such as the BBC, WDR3 and Wire Magazine amongst numerous others and presented at the Austin Museum of Art or SXSW Film Festival to name a few. Allen presents here a 4-track CD called Pearls (an allusion to Brian Eno’s 1984 album?). It is important to mention the considerable work that has gone into the design of its impeccable black cardboard package, setting a dark and restrain mood, echoing perfectly what is about to be played. The first two tracks Strange Birds and Lost Energizer feature warm and friendly tones drifting aimlessly above a bed of undulating static and quiet sine waves, reminding of the experience of watching rain, without thinking, only absorbed by the moment in an endless contemplation of life passing ever so slowly. A perfect opener that invites the listener to sit down and look inward, slowly forgetting the outside world. Even if melodies are suggested, they are not really prominent, maybe only setting the scene for the following track Isozaki Clouds where all the aforementioned elements come into play in a more purposeful manner. Here the rain is not only falling but telling a beautiful story of sorrow and loneliness. The static hiss is solidly contoured, the tones are more articulate and the underlying currents of bassy drones are delicately enveloping. Half way through the track, a plaintive loop slowly emerges from an hazy bed of electronics and absorbes the devastating melodic monologue that had kept playing from the start, leaving the listener both exhausted and mesmerised. This track is an instant stand-out that could be looping forever, revealing each time a little more of its hidden beauty. The last track Blue eyes is quite different from the rest of this wonderful album, both in term of sound-design (darker and bigger) and compositional process (static upfront and melodies more pronounced). It is easy to see it as some sort of closing credits, suspending the moment in the air, and making the silence to follow all the more warm and enveloping. The Liminal, Scott McMillan The final leg of my return from my Christmas break had me catching a train back to London from Leeds. The snow that had been covering the country for much of the festive period seemed to have turned into a icy, foggy suspension, hiding the Yorkshire countryside from view. It felt eerily still, particularly with headphones in; only a faint mechanical chunter told me that I was in fact travelling. My attention was caught, however, by the occasional sudden appearance of a tree through the haze, its blackness picked out against the brooding grey behind. And another, hard edges amongst soft textures. And another, crisp shapes contrasted against a diffuse background. Gradually, I found the album I was listening to on those headphones, Pearls by Cory Allen, and the outside world, were seeping into one another, it was as if the pure tones were becoming immersed in the fog, and the trees were emerging from static. The sounds adding new colour to the sights, and the sights adding fresh harmony to the sounds. A happy accident of time and place, surely. However, accident isn’t a word that is used often in describing the work of Cory Allen. There is a reason the label he jointly runs with Mike Vermusky is called Quiet Design, after all. Allen’s solo work for the label has tended towards the scientific, being formulated from precisely measured combinations of ambient textures and tones, carefully set up to experiment with notions of perception. The range of frequencies he uses, so I’ve read, even include the imperceptible, the ultrasonic. You clearly aren’t supposed to engage with this on all levels, all of the time. His last album, Hearing Is Forgetting The Name Of The Thing One Hears, was a collection of glistening sine waves inspired by a neighbour’s set of wind chimes; always there, always musical, always beautiful, but somehow not always noticed, drifting in and out of aural focus. Ambient music in the sense that Eno would approve of, as ignorable as it is interesting in its own right. Allen’s new release Pearls is similarly unassuming, but it is a sonically richer experience, full of contrasts. Acoustic and electronic. The light and the dark. The real and the unreal. “Strange Birds” rolls sleepily down from the hill at dawn and immediately diverges. The tension of a pulsing river of glitchy static is broken by delicate Fender Rhodes droplets, soft minimal melodies playing on the surface, becoming increasingly diffuse with each rippling repetition. Throughout the track, and the album as a whole, a slow undercurrent of bass notes tries to drag you out of your seat and into its fluid depths; the combination of frequencies, as well as the meticulousness of their assembly, reminding me of the electronic constructions of Oren Ambarchi. While initially it feels still, you begin to perceive the sensation of slow movement, of calculated progression. The tracks run into one another, those recurring bass and Rhodes sounds leaking across the divides, pushing you almost imperceptibly forward into new misty landscapes which are shy about revealing their beauty. As well as sharing sounds with each other, the tracks trade them with the outside world; at the end of the album is a field recording of sorts, as if someone has accidentally called you when their mobile phone is in their pocket, and you are listening in to them going about their crackly business. You find yourself tuning out from your world and into theirs, these dislocated sounds distracting you from the wondrous scenery: the ruined majesty of “Isoyazi Clouds” with its looped, greyed-out classical samples is only gradually apparent, as if it is approached by train through the fog. Or, quite possibly, via some other means. You probably don’t need to invest in a ticket to/from Leeds to get the most from Pearls. It will add a delightful tint to your environment, wherever you are. Was Ist Das 'Pearls' seems an apt title for an album of ambient so perfect, so digital that it has become a sort of artistic engineering achievement. The four extended tracks that make up the album present a rich yet gentle tapestry of sound. At times it is minimalist but at other parts of the same track the mix becomes more layered, although losing none of it's subtlety. This album is one of those that resonates with the surroundings. As I write, rain began to fall gently on the skylight, the sound incorporated beautifully into the album. Although presented as four tracks, the transition is not always noticeable as the music carefully evolves through phases rather than jumps track. 'Pearls' is a rewarding album full of wonder, detail and atmosphere. If you are after perfectly crafted experimental music, look no further. Fluid Radio, Brendan Moore Cory Allen’s ‘Pearls’ is one of those albums that don’t want you to get too comfortable. The album’s press release suggests that it explores ‘existential landscape’ – two words I don’t think I’ve ever seen put together before with regards to music, but somehow fitting. The album is not exactly inviting but isn’t cold either. It is an album that has a clearly defined narrative in a way that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Allen is always working toward an end goal and there is an almost existential philosophical statement in this small self-contained album. ‘Pearls’ is an album that takes you gently by the hand before it drags you to somewhere strange and ominous. The first few minutes of opener ‘Strange Birds’ have a mysterious quality that has you intrigued but not sure you are on steady ground. The album opens with the low hum of static and sparse bass transmissions. Slowly a shimmering melody enters and we aren’t sure where we are going. Is this place safe? Will it be eerily beautiful or beautifully eerie? What’s amazing is that the artist refuses to give us answers to any of these questions. And this is where Allen begins his tightrope walk balancing the cerebral and the emotional. This place is foreign, we know that much. But instead of the gentle melody, it’s that hum of static that wins out. The safety net is taken away and we are taken to a world that seems almost post-apocalyptic where everything feels cold and unfamiliar. Songs 2 and 3, ‘Lost Energizer’ and ‘Isozaki Clouds’, continue us down this dark path. Wherever we are, it’s not easy. It’s not familiar. We are intrigued. But safe? No. Still, Allen is showing us something and he is pulling off a hell of balancing act to keep it all in check. And then the static disappears and we are left with that melody. But as it turns out, it’s not that safe either. In it’s new context, it’s as threatening as that static hum. Then you realize exactly where you are. You are alone with your thoughts and completely surrounded by the real world around you. And this is what Allen does so well: he creates and introspective album that begs the same sort of introspection from the listener. The album slowly unfurls to closer ‘Blue Eyes’, the album’s least foreboding song. It’s a song with rich beauty, and yet, still always restrained. But it invites connection rather than introspection. It’s Allen’s way of letting you go: I’ve shown you a place you don’t quite feel comfortable with – now go re-connect, it seems to say. ‘Pearls’ is an incredibly focused release that shows Allen pulling off a high-wire act that risks falling into austerity on one hand and sentimentalism on the other. But never does the album miss a step. Did I like being in this place; this is existential landscape? Yes, but I never felt comfortable. And will I go back? Many times over, I’m sure. Future Sequence Austin, Texas based experimental artist Cory Allen follows up previous releases 'The Fourth Way' and 'Hearing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears' with meditative ambient album 'Pearls' on his own co-founded label Quiet Design. Saturated atmospherics of subtle microsounds resonate through the four tracks, each creating a sweetly toned landscape, with an undercurrent of tension, delivered through the presence of static noise, occasional minor notes, a background feeling that all is not well. 'Strange Birds' locates the listener within a mileu of worn static noise, and chiming bells suggesting a Japanese influence through the choice of notes. 'Isozaki Clouds' also could be a reference of the Japanese modernist architect of the same name - you can imagine the lighter than air metallic structures meticulously described through the piece. 'Blue Eyes' settles the heart and mind, with its rising bassline, providing a cadence to both the track and album. Whilst still very electronic - combining static and worn field recordings that hum like a power generator - Pearls stays true to an observation of nature, weaving a layered surrounding environment. You can almost hear the sand eroding the surface of the pearls, the mother of pearl blues and greens glistening. Vital Weekly, FDW Allen calls this 'dreamy and transcendent world of modern ambient music'. How very true that is. Whatever it is that Allen uses - me thinks a Max/msp patch with field recordings, listening to these sustained sounds and crackling, fire like sounds - he plays it very well. Quiet indeed, letting sounds die out beyond their sustain, while overlaying with other events, so that everything bumps and collides in seemingly random ways. The four tracks seem to be linked together through the sounds used - the fire crackle as I wrote it down - and the somewhat identical methods of processing. It makes a wonderful work of indeed modern ambient music. Perhaps all in the digital domain but with some great warmth to it, much needed on a cold winter's day.
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Tracks: 1. Strange Birds
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