musicforvoyeurs - Encounter

  by John Clarkson

published: 2 / 10 / 2017

Label: musicforvoyeurs
Format: CD

intro

Melancholic but thought-provoking fourth album from musicforvoyeurs, one of the many projects of London-based musician Rick Senley

Rick Senley is a creative tour-de-force. As well as having published several books of photography and recently completed his debut novel, he plays the guitar in two London indie bands, Dog on a Stick and Made in Minsk. He also fronts two instrumental studio only projects, musicforvoyeurs and I Am A Man With A St Tropez Tan, both of which have fourth albums due out this year. ‘Encounter’, musicforoyeurs’ new album, on initial appearances seems more hopeful than its three predecessors. A guitar/electronic project, musicforvoyeurs’ eponymous debut album was written as Senley suffered from depression and insomnia, and was born out of tragedy after his girlfriend had died and he was learning to walk again after he had been involved in an accident. ‘The Long Wait’, musicforvoyeurs’ second album, was even more bleak, recorded shortly after Senley had suffered a subsequent psychiatric breakdown, while its only marginally more optimistic third album ‘The Curtains Are Open’ found him fragilely and uncertainly facing up to the future. ‘Encounter’ builds on the sound of the other albums, combining ambient synthesisers and guitars with field recordings and samples taken from obscure, middle-of-the-night television programmes. It is achingly beautiful, echoing washes of synths, shimmering guitar lines and occasional rolls of trumpet giving it a sublimity. “That is the loveliest story I have ever heard”, says a small child as his father concludes a bedtime story on the title track, and several of the field recordings, which were recorded in rural Thailand and Burma, both countries in which Senley has lived, have a pastorality. Much of it also sounds deceptively huge, none more so than the opening track ‘A Curious Young Man’, which with its banks of synths, despite being recorded on limited equipment, has an epic, orchestral feel. Rick Senley has, however, described ‘Encounter’ as a “dark” album, and it is. Short stabs of distortion and occasional flickers of feedback imply something bleaker beneath the surface, and this is brought to a head on the discordant penultimate song ‘So Evil’ in which an American Reagan type chillingly claims that he would rather see his daughters die than grow up under Communism and blusters about the benefits of the arms race. At a time, in which history repeats itself, and Donald Trump squares up to North Korea over nuclear weapons,it is also timely. The album is then closed amidst a barrage of klaxoning synths with the brooding and melancholic ‘Madly’. ‘Encounter’ is the musical equivalent of ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’, a depiction of the world as it should be and the way it sadly is. At barely 26 minutes long it doesn’t waste a note, yet is one of the most thought-provoking and enthralling indie releases of the year.

Track Listing:-

Band Links:-