En, ‘City of Brides’
It’s been three years since Already Gone, the second full-length from En, the Bay Area-duo featuring perennial astral travelers Maxwell August Croy (member of Portraits and co-head of Root Strata, with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma) and James Devane. But while the pair may keep its output relatively spare (at least compared to similarly minded explorers), En resurfaces here with perhaps the most kosmische record of the year, harkening back to established gods of truly cosmic music but with ample auras of future-minded resonances and ideas.
Opener “Blades” rides with Tim Hecker-like crashes of dissonant subtlety and overpowering movements. “Dead Ringer” plays like some prized aural artifact, coveted and cherished in a collector’s closet for decades. Stringed tones pluck into oblivion, slightly falling in and out of place depending on the passing breeze. Eastern modes are processed and postured with respectful experimentation.
Once “Blonde is Back” unfurls its bass-heavy wash of orchestral tones, it’s all over. You’re captivated by the effortless jump cuts from idea to idea. Here, Croy and Devane balance drifting weightlessness with obliterating presence and production. Textures fill all negative space, leaving just enough of a modest little nook for you to squeeze into and absorb each stration of sound. ”Songs for Diminished Lovemaking Part I” finds the duo careening through listless beauty akin to Johann Johannsen or Ben Frost (at his absolute “prettiest”), creating stunning sets of stringed modern classical while imbuing a final twist of strangely Cocteau Twins- or Durutti Column-esque guitar bliss. The suite’s “Part II” returns a few tracks later, surveying even more emotional ground and following an effervescent bob through various channels of textured sound.
“Awkward Paws” plays out like some waking dream, with echoed blips on the other side of a room bounce through a cloud of morning fog and distantly illuminated rustling. “Mendocino Nature Rave” returns to the austere physicality of “Dead Ringer,” creating a nearly palpable sense of movement and percussive presence. ”Mark of the Slav,” one of the brighter tracks here, could easily sneak onto one of Kompakt’s seminal Pop Ambient collections, perpetuating a certain optimistic cheeriness surrounded by frosty, elegiac production. Then, “Secret Samba,” by far the album’s “centerpiece” (if you believe in that sort of thing), rears its head moments before the album concludes. The track surpasses every other piece here, clocking in well past the nine-minute mark, allowing one final haven to burrow and exist in before the closing, eponymous track unveils its various, static-riddles charms.
Oddly enough, there are 11 songs on City of Brides, an average number of tracks for any average album, but a rather high number for drone or ambient records. This implies to me that the duo has become a master of self-editing. While En does give each track ample space to bloom, you can’t help but think what was left on the cutting room floor to fit so many standalone songs onto one album. One can only hope there’ll be an expanded, director’s cut of this LP some day.
