Records of the Week

LOSCIL OFFICIAL SITE | LOSCIL ON KRANKY RECORDS

First and foremost, loscil is, and has always been, headphone music; any of Scott Morgan’s works should be listened to, enjoyed, and cherished with this in mind. Coast/Range/Arc should also be enjoyed with a simple caveat: do not look for a beat, you won’t find one. The Canadian sound artist’s most recent release, this time fittingly on Glacial Movements Records, is the follow-up to 2010′s preposterously stellar Endless Falls (which essentially functioned as a manual on how to craft a modern ambient record – incredible spoken-word performance by Daniel Bejar of Destroyer aside). However, rather than a continuation of the ebbing ambient-with-field-recordings mixture so soon after Endless Falls, loscil opts to drop the beats entirely and to build timeless soundscapes inspired by the coasts, mountain ranges, and arcing hills of the Pacific Northwest – and to great effect. Album opener “Black Tusk” travels through 10 minutes of pure ambient backdrops, ending with what sounds to be an imitation of cold Pacific winds. “Fromme” utilizes the low-note-drop in creating rhythm, for which loscil is consistently known, while “Névé,” one of the record’s highlights, yields an incredibly dark & isolated mood with just 8 minutes of expertly manipulated drone. Coast/Range/Arc closes on the majestic “Goat Mountain,” if drone/minimal ambient can be called at all stately. The varied moods shown through First Narrows, Plume, Submers, Endless Falls, and now Coast/Range/Arc show Scott Morgan to be fully capable of a range of ambient styles, but a few things remain the same: 1 hour of free time necessary, comfortable chair suggested, ‘cans required.