Luscious, engaging electronic music
by
NienteZ
Jeffrey Radcliffe's music sits at an intersection of dreamily intuitive and intellectually engaging. While there is an ambient quality to the tracks on Ten Directions that makes it tempting to let the album roll in the background to busy activity, the album really rewards close listening. Each track is constructed with a destination in mind (recalling Radcliffe's earlier album, Travelog.) The journey from the opening to closing notes is filled with texture and interest. Radcliffe clearly enjoys experimenting with sound, but usually in an harmonious and pleasurable way, using grain and distortion to enrich the music rather than to shock the listener. The music uses modern techniques but the sensibility is informed by a deep musical background and both a theoretical and emotional understanding of what makes music interesting and enjoyable to listen to.
The opening track, Build Your House Out of Clouds combines electronic beeps, repeating and growing distant, with soft electric guitar riffs that drift like the eponymous clouds, drawing the ear and the mind to a contemplative plane. The third track, Under Third, also appears as a bonus track at the end of the album, with a grainier mix. Both mixes are intriguing. The piano motif that recurrs throughout the track has a lonesome, gently homesick feeling to it, but the entire track is underpinned by Radcliffe's always deft use of rhythm and layers of sound to create a rich, satisfying fusion. Velcro Steamroller, late in the album, provides perhaps the best example of Radcliffe's dexterity with rhythm and distortion. It is, indeed, relentless like a steamroller, but the texture, with all the nubbliness and tiny velcro hooks to it, really hold the listener's attention. The track also stands out as more upbeat than some of the other tracks on the album, a palate cleanser of energetic joltiness that wakens the ear.
The album rounds out with Tango Heaven as the final track, a lush, slowly building, dense piece that seems to celebrate the accordian in a way that would surprise most aficianados. This is a lovely note to end the album on, but the bonus track, Under Third, (grain mix) does not detract from the over all composition of the album, but rather adds a final reprise to the themes presented.
