CD of the Month: October

CD of the Month for October is: 'Miniatures' by Matthew Robert Cooper

On his previous albums, Matthew Robert Cooper (otherwise known as Eluvium) draped his instrumental music in a rockist aesthetic. Those soundscapes were charted with heavily treated guitars, but the music on Miniatures is mapped out with a more orchestral instrumental palette. Organic elements-piano, brass and strings-mingle with synths and echoing ambient atmospheres. But this instrumental shift hardly alters the course of Eluvium’s music: His songs are still painstakingly constructed and layered with sonic detail. And like his previous work, he is more concerned with texture and tone than with hooks or conventional song structure. In other words, Cooper’s departure from guitar-based music is akin to him speaking in another language but still saying the same thing.

Nine short, simply numbered titled saturnian interludes make up the release of atmospheric chamber music from the cardboard box vortex. Miniatures moves from swirling spatial feedback manipulations to stripped down minimal piano pieces and back while you watch from the curbside the ghostly parade. Eluvium’s strength lies in creating music that evokes a whole host of emotions. As horns hold long notes over a twinkling sheen of keys, the opener unfurls slowly and sets the contemplative mood of the album. Like what follows, it’s produced as if the music were being transmitted from within the womb: Sounds ring out and bleed together. Such fuzzy edges don’t mean that the sound is muddied, though. Instead, they charge the music with an insular coherence.

With one foot in pop music and one in avant-garde composition, Cooper has crafted an album that is at once minimal while deceptively complex. These instrumentals command a listener’s attention but never stoop to pop-music gimmickry. They exist in another world altogether, adrift in an echoing atmosphere.

Purchase here