Gilded
Terrane
Hidden Shoal Recordings

Gilded is an West Australian duo, counting the experimental musicians/players Matt Rösner and Adam Trainer. Rösner is based in the small town of Myalup in South West Australia, just south of Perth - the hometown of Trainer. Adam Trainer is a musician, writer, and radio DJ, and he's been in various experimental Perth bands including post-rock outfit Radarmaker, Polaroid Ghost and the Ghost of 29 Megacycles. He's had his recordings put out on labels such as Phantom Channel, hellosQuare, New Weird Australia, and Feral Media. Hidden Shoal describe his musical pathfinding like he '...has sought to locate textural nuance alongside dislocated melody'. According to Hidden Shoal, Matt Rösner is '...one of Western Australia's most renowned experimental musicians, with his 'musical focus on guitar and field recordings', and he's had his stuff released by labels as Room40, 12K, Apestaartje, Meupe and Miatera. Right, then, let the ambience begin.

Experimental/ambient music is mostly soothing stuff for soul and body. "Velar" opens as a 5-minute static starter. "String and Stone" is livelier, if that's a fitting description for ambient music. The piano-driven "Dew Cloud" has got more of a melodic touch, still being a slow-floating tune. "Cluttered Room", the album's first single, has almost got a 'band attitude'. Is that a upright bass? And a banjo? A sampled banjo? Quite cool, making me somehow think of the 1980s band Shriekback, with a touch of exotic folk tossed in. "Expand/Contract" is another key-track, and one of the best of the album. The piano is the core, along with sparse rhythms and a somewhat threatening 'ground zero', or 'centre of the storm' soundscape. But the track's got an almost chanting chorus sequences, and some noisy parts as well. It's a challenging record, with monotony and repetition being the format, in a quiet and reflective way. Most of the album is quite majestic in a toned down style. I need a pause when listening to this stuff, but it's quite okay to spin a couple of tracks at a time. When focusing on each of the songs they strike me as quite absorbing as well. Asking me Terrane could have been a release on the Ukrainian Nexsound label.

The title 'terrane' comes from geology, meaning: dislocation of a geological formation from its original position, to a seamless re-location onto a new landscape, with its form and contrasts unchanged. This means, I guess, that Gilded's music is about positioning, re-positioning, transition, shifting, changing without anyone noticing that this is happening. Or has happened.

Terrane will be officially released on October 8th.

Copyright © 2012 Håvard Oppøyen