Dark asphalt

A little LMYE paean to Gareth Hardwick, whose Low Point (our label of the year back in 2010*...) has now racked up a decade as a beacon of challenging, compelling music - both his & others'.

Below, a vaguely reverse-chronological immersion in Hardwick's deeply reflective, always affecting work - not quite all the way back to that Bologna Pony LP001 or his subsequent solo I Dream of Red, but almost: from the soothing dreaminess of 2005's home-recorded Three Degrees of Separation to the rich, inter-locked textures of this year's Two Songs. 


* Profile includes an illuminating interview with Hardwick that explores Low Point's "logical progression", as well as vinyl love & label challenges...

Blurb: "Employing the same minimal palette of guitar and field recordings but now drawing upon urban, rather than coastal themes; Two Songs is iron, brick and dark asphalt in response to the grey-blue swell and salt wind of Of the Sea and Shore. 
Side A is built around a buzzing drone, an arc light on concrete, which by degrees dissolves to an autumnal hiss; that low, constant mixture of rain, distant traffic and human life which sits just below the threshold of consciousness for anyone living in a city framed by spare, untreated guitar. The same drone, now dulled and ragged, reappears on Side B as a coda to a gently oscillating wash of interwoven harmonics. 
Small shifts in texture, timbre and dynamics are concisely entwined to create an atmospheric and evocative EP." 









(from sound&fury comp Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow, Vol. 1)
Photos by Abbey Rees-Hales.
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