- Blow Waves is the debut album from Low Flung; the longstanding project of Sydney via Canberra musician Danny Wild. It follows on the heels of a string of varied releases on various labels and formats, with a shifting stylistic focus that has selectively encompassed elements of jazz, ambient music, musique concrete, left-field techno and low-fi house.
Blow Waves shows no signs of being any less diverse than previous Low Flung releases, beginning with Ocean Grove, a subtlety fast paced progression various of field recordings and gentle instrumentation, mostly various keyboards and shaker percussion. The song progresses from the sounds of a suburban supermarket trolley, to babbling billy’s and brooks on to the far reaches of the cosmos. The palate of sounds is sophisticated and sensitive, without being overly indulgent in any particular aspect of the music or the amount of time that they encompass. The blending of field recordings, live instrumentation and synthesizers is wonderfully curated, providing balanced hints of the familiar and the exotic in both.
Never boring or lacking in substance, the tracks on Blow Waves communicate a sophisticated and developed musical language based around the exchangeable realities of nature and human-made structure. There are great shifts in mood, with the conclusion of the A-Side Frozen Coat providing a very contemplative and gentle fade out, before the upbeat and highly rhythmic Constant Structure picks up where the album left off, providing a shift in tone with the noticeable absence of field recordings giving some well used space and silence to many more synthesizer pulses and drums. Rising Damp follows suit, utilising a more rhythmically focused and repetitive structure before Temporary Structure shifts back toward moody and contemplative ambience, with the tingling use of waterfall sounds and electrifying bursts of high-pitched percussive synths.
It’s hard to think of a clear comparision for the music on Blow Waves. It has elements of a nostalgic appreciation for Australiana in the variety of field recordings and retro synthesizer sounds, but they’re not so on the surface as to be directly comparable to the gaudy Australian electronic or new age music of the past, they’re lovingly embraced and implemented as an effective part of a wider tapestry of delicately suggestive and unique sounds that also includes elements of improvisational music, jazz and various scenes of club music past and present.
The production is fairly consistently clear, there's not a lot of deep sub-level base of blown out highs. When instruments hit particularly high or low it's a natural part of the composition, and not overpowering. Everything sounds crisp and organic. The field recordings and live instruments sound occasionally raw in the mix with the variety of clearly synthesized sounds, but I don't think this detracts from the experience but is an exciting point of difference in the music which highlights the different layers and their distinct qualities which work well together.
Album closer Bacchus Marsh, features the cross-state Melbourne and Sydney based jazz band Prophets performing a droning, chaotic marching band with crashing echoing hi-hats and blown out horns. It almost hints at an entirely different direction for music. While retaining some qualities of the other tracks like wetland field recordings and a loose, varied rhythmic feel. It's a great, climactic conclusion to an aesthetically concise and confident debut full-length record.
- Jaden Gallagher.