2023-08-31 18:48:22
To Be a Cloud is despite its typical Saxophones-Aesthetics also noticeably shaped by the band’s homesickness for California, the impressions of a young family and the longing for the 70s, jazz and Stan Getz’ bossa nova.
Alexi Erenkov (voice, guitar, saxophone, flute) and his wife Alison Alderdice (voice, percussion) and his assistant Richard Laws (bass, synthesizers, vibraphone, keyboards) shift the spectrum a little as part of their traditionally quiet chill-out sound . Yet one feels immediately at home in the pleasant escapism of Saxophonesthose of the modest fluting, whistling The Mist let their relaxed, dreamy symbiosis of Easy Listening Slowcore, Chamber Folk and Sophisti-Ambient Pop muse away: the gentle percussion rumbles and shoves, the smooth singing is beguiling, as usual cautiously and calmly, the smooth singing is beguiling, everything splashes jazzy and seductively softly, like in an exotic lounge, in the Bill Callahan old Timber Timbre with moods between Whitney and Cigarettes After Sex lulls. A wonderfully comfortable, carefully tempered atmosphere, which ultimately rounds up the rating.
Later, slightly dozing forebodings of psychedelic drift through the band’s lonely bay, sometimes even shadows can be seen, melodies wobble like lava lamps. The drums, wrapped in cotton wool and limiting the space at the back, hold everything together, the voice is in the foreground, in between caress smart, reserved guitars or synths, with xylophone or saxophone accompaniment: pointed, but reduced; contemplative, soulful and always slightly dancing.
That To Be a Cloud sits next to somewhat more contrasting songs like Boy Crazy or Desert Flower nevertheless loses in a ballad-esque uniformity, without amplitudes in the little variable dynamics at some point only seems to prepare variations of the same piece, is a problem that one has already dealt with in exactly the same way Songs of the Saxophones knows, also from Eternity Bay.
As a tasteful background sound system with a compact runtime, this is something that doesn’t bother at all, especially on the mildly ending summer days, even if, as with the two predecessors, you forget relatively quickly how nice it actually is.
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