A Colour for Autumn

Headphone Commute Review

     

In my first revisit to the best ambiance of 2009, I turn to Lawrence English and his last masterpiece, A Colour For Autumn. More than a year has gone by since this 12k release, and yet another fall is here, just as gray as the last one, begging for some touch of color, even if it’s in the mid-range frequencies. Australian sound artist, Lawrence English has already released many amazing of albums on his very own, Room40 label, as well as our favorite Touch and of course, Taylor Deupree‘s 12k. A Colour For Autumn seems to follow in the footsteps of his previous release, For Varying Degrees Of Winter (Baskaru, 2007), thematically tailored for seasonal transit, cycles, and weather. “Like all environmental phenomena, seasonal variation is highly localized, and expressed not only visually through vegetation etc, but also sonically as insect life, leaves under foot and fauna all change in response to the climatic shifts.” Bathed in field recordings and micro-tonal ambient pads, the sound at times swells towards harsher edges, then retreats with acoustic textures. Synthetic blends with organic, as the continuous beeping of the telephone’s tone, blends on top of guitar strums and synth sweeps. Recorded during two years (2007-09), each piece serves as an “auditory portrait” (a produced version of our Sound Postcards), capturing a unique experience of Autumn from the southern hemisphere. With a few contributions from Dean Roberts and Christian Fennesz, this album shall soothe and warm the weary bones in the windy days to come. Check out the recent releases by Lawrence English on Touch – Incongruous Harmonies as well as his latest collaboration with Minamo on A Path Less Travelled (Room40, 2010).