Thresholder

Description

Eighteen months on from his last new release, Vancouver-based singer / composer Ian William Craig returns with an album-length release that collects together eleven new tracks. Entitled Thresholder, the record sees Craig return towards the smudged and scoured beauty of his 2016 opus, Centres, a record which was universally acclaimed, making many end-of-year lists including the likes of Rolling Stone, Uncut, The Wire, The Quietus, The 405 and Drowned In Sound. Thresholder is released on vinyl and digital formats, with the former packaged in gorgeous inner / outer sleeve artwork from Ian. Besides as the often-quoted William Basinski reference point, the music here recalls the visceral media-decay of early 00s operators like Fennesz, Belong, Desormais, Philip Jeck or Pimmon. Idea for Contradiction 2 Is like a massively overdriven or sandpaper-scoured version of Brian Enos An Ending or some shredded Colin Stetson stem. The ending of And Therefore the Moonlight is reminiscent of Sigur Rós (who are fans and recently invited Ian to play their Norður og Niður festival in Reykjavik); whilst Sfumato exists in the same dimension as The Caretakers haunted ballroom with its reverb-drenched and occluded distant vocal. Elsehwere The Last Wesbrook Lament might recall Animal Collectives Loch Raven with the percussion erased. Craig signs the record off on More Words for Mistake, a track that seems to define itself through absence, with the spirit of old machinery rattling away as we emerge from the records 38-minutes scoured and anointed.