Oblong - The Sea at Night

  by Keith How

published: 26 / 3 / 2019

---

Review

Oblong are an occasional trio of friends (Ben Edwards, Dave Nice andSimon Stronarch) who meet up to exchange ideas and thoughts .'The Sea at Night' is the result of these gatherings and is a collection of twelve compositions that reflect the trio‘s influences and styles. A fairly reflective and nostalgic affair, 'The Sea at Night' opens with the soporific 'Planetismal'. It is a downbeat opener which meanders along without really grabbing your senses Things pick up a little on the title track. Echoes of Kraftwerk and all things electropop has the foot tapping as a metronomic beat urgently pushes the track along. This is followed by 'Cool Calm and Collected'.A guitar is gently plucked with keyboards, picking out an Eastern-flavoured melody line. It could easily be a soundtrack to a middle eastern documentary. There is no obvious theme running through this collection. What we have is a kaleidoscope of influences and sounds moulded together. 'Robot Dan' harks back to the glory days of French electro duo AIR. The influence of Ben Edwards (Benje)' work with John Foxx is plain to hear on such tracks as 'Sinophone elsewhere Phosphorescence' which is just a little tedious. In complete contrast 'Fast Radio Burst' returns to all things Krautrock and is a fine bubbling workout that is really pleasing with some superb drum programming and hints of mid-period Tangerine Dream. It seems the more uptempo pieces are where the trio‘s strengths appear to be strongest. The second half of the album is where things come together, although 'Weird Sugar' really annoyed me simply because the melody line comes straight from 'Imagine'. You ,on the other hand, might love it…. The album closes out with 'Number Nine', a midtempo cut that has a feel of travelling in distant lands without a map which, I feel, sums up 'The Sea at Night' perfectly.

Track Listing:-

1 Planetesimal
2 Frost Pocket
3 The Sea at Night
4 Cool Calm and Collected
5 Robot Dan
6 Siphonophore
7 Phosphorescence
8 Fast Radio Burst
9 Echolocation
10 Romford Suzuki
11 Weird Sugar
12 Number Nine