David Andree – In Streams

Sunshine Ltd. lately introduced the work of David Andree to me and my ears. With ‘In Streams’ – his first tape release – he impressed me immediately and I started to browse his website for more information. With wonderful graphite and oil paintings and drawings and cobweb-like installations with string he completed my first impressions and I can assure that we have here an amazing artist with a deep sense for auditory and visual arts. ‘In Streams’ is a 45-minutes work created this past winter. The wonderful overall analogue tape sound reminds me of William Basinski’s incredible long-form experiments. And as I’m a huge fan of Basinski’s work, this is explicitly meant to be a compliment. This tape is full of warmth and beauty, melancholy and heartwarming analogue sounds.

The opening piece ‘A front’ is one of the most beautiful tracks I’ve heard for a while indeed. Fading in slowly it more and more expands until the beauty of the loop unfolds completely. I personally wouldn’t have complained if the deeply basinski-esque piece was extended to a long-form of 20, 30 or even 40 minutes. But then we might have missed ‘Breach (surrounded)’ and ‘It comes in waves (and settled in my chest)’ on Side 1, too. Especially the latter doesn’t fall short of ‘A front’ and consequently is another stunner. Side 2 comes up with a more droning and also with a clearer sound. Again Andree delivers warm layers of sound combined to repetitively changing chords. All the wintery quietude seems to be set to music with this beautiful cassette release. On Side 2 especially ‘Eventually lifting’ stands out in my opinion. It seems to be the result of some studies of works by Reel-to-Reel pioneers and combining all the best attributes of their work just to create this piece.

So what can I say about ‘In Streams’? It’s a really strong release, a wonderful addition to the Sunshine Ltd. catalogue and certainly sits perfectly on the cassette format. However, I just added David Andree to my imaginary list of artists that deserve much more attention in future. Highly recommended.

[ 4,8 / 5 ]