Monolith Cocktail Blog

ALBUM REVIEW/DOMINIC VALVONA

Sebastian Reynolds ‘Canary’
(PinDrop Records)

After what seems like an age, and with a prolific string of projects, collaborations and EP releases behind him, Sebastian Reynolds finally unveils his debut solo album. Then again, the musician, artist, producer, remixer, PR and label boss has been busy: both creatively and privately.

A quick run-through of the CV since 2017 reveals two impressive volumes of electronic-chamber music with the Anglo-German Solo Collective (a trio that included the virtuoso cellist Anne Müller alongside Reynolds’ longtime foil, the violinist, electronic music star Alex Stolze, who makes several appearances on this album); the multimedia Jataka texts inspired Maṇīmekhalā dance and musical scored drama with a host of collaborators, including the Neon Dance company, chorographer Pichet Klunchun and The Jongkraben Ensemble; The Universe Remembers, Nihilism Is Pointless and Crows run of cerebral EPs; and the long distance running inspired Athletics EP (a sporting passion for Reynolds, who’s a pretty decent amateur runner and contender in his own right). That’s without taking into account all his production and remixing duties, or his various stints in other groups. And as you will hear on the Canary album of augurs and forewarnings, there’s been much to process from a private life of loss: but joy too.   

You could say this has all been channeled into the sonic tapestry of this expanded statement: the grief of losing his mother and baby, Noah; a study of Buddhism and meditation practices; and quest for realisation and rationality in an increasingly hostile world of self-absorption, vacuous validation, the non-committal and self pity.  

Finding plenty of sample material from the self-help industry of podcasts (personally I find the whole medium tedious, and one of the very worse ways of communication) and endless analysis (enough already), Reynolds’ Canary (as in the famous trope of the ‘canary in the coal mine’ warning) album is part counselling manual, part encouraging transcendence, part cerebral, and part grief management. And whereas Akira The Don used Jordon Peterson, Reynolds envelopes the “when things get crazy, don’t get crazy too” actualisation mantra of the former Navy SEAL, Iraq combatant turn author and podcaster Jocko Willink in wavy vapours, psy-trance and Orb-like wafts of ambience. The author of Extreme Ownership peddles a more responsible approach to coping with whatever life throws at you; in a fashion, the very opposite of the confessional therapeutic method that puts the individual before and above every one else. And then there’s Carl Jung, who’s quantified abstracts of the consciousness and its relation to reality crops up on the opening oboe-fluted-melodica vaped ‘Sleeping Meadow’; a floated crossover of post-punk dance music, FSOL, 808 State and Yann Tierson.

Certainly a thinker, Reynolds weaves his penchant for such philosophical enquires and curiosities, both scientific and spiritual – see the repeating theme of Buddhist liturgy references suffused throughout the album. The more modern scientist scholars of serial podcasts, Sam Harris and Lex Fridman, appear on the Pali language (the traditional language of the Theravada Buddhist scriptures) entitled ‘Viññāna’. A conversation on the “nature of mind” and “consciousness” is lifted and given a suitable Eastern feel and touch of Vangelis, Boards Of Canada and Black Dog; a buoyant dip of tablas on a slow march towards the mysterious.

In the same sphere, ‘Temple Gong’ stirs up more of those Buddhist vibes with its mallet-like bamboo flutters of gamelan and Eastern menagerie; and the two-part ‘Vimutti’ suite, which features the already mentioned Stolze on chamber violin woes and more wispy experimental touches (merging with the synthesised), is the filmic soundtrack to a mirage retreat of enveloping washes, Ajay Saggar and Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Circling back on grief and the process period of the initial shock at the passing of family members, the eventual acceptance and the coping strategies that are needed are aired on a number of tracks. The ambient wafted, faint piano dappled, muffled padded deep plunge into conveying death and memories themed ‘Shortest Day’ mourns the loss of Reynolds’ mother who passed away in the summer of 2016. As the seasonal and metaphorical light fades away, this improvisational bedded piece proves a subtle augur, recorded as it was three years before his computer engineer mother died; her, now much missed, comforting voice just about audible in the last wisps and vapours of the track. Growing up surrounded by now defunct, nostalgic electronic equipment and computers – the objects, apparatus and tools amassed by his mother who built computers for Research Machines -, Reynolds was always destined to pursue a pathway in electronic, synthesised and computerised music it seems.

Tragically, Reynolds and his partner Adrienne lost their baby Noah in the July of 2020. And all the sorrow and questions that such an incomprehensible event can manifest are channeled into the wept, hurt and ached emotionally charged ‘Fetus’. Submerged in a moving electronic score of McCorry and Jed Kurzel-like plaintive and deepened cello drones (courtesy of Jonathan Ouin), higher pitched whistles of a kind and subtle hints of mystical gamelan gongs, bowls being vibrated, a life is both missed and remembered in an abstract sonic suite.

The finale, ‘The After Life’, is more about acceptance; the fate we’re all promised at some point. The vibe is more twinkly, childlike and starry, like Banco de Gaia’s trance-Tibetan train chuffing through Prokofiev’s woodwind magical forest. A release, some kind of comfort, the next incarnation awaits if you’re a student of Buddha. 

But back to the defining themes of Canary once more; the titular track of which features a speech by JFK – the dream martyr of interlocking, multilayered crisscrossing conspiracy theories the world over. It does feed into the whole third, fourth, fifth column of paranoia (which doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!) theory, his prophetic words on secret societies (the secret state) and the concealment and sinister nature of such cabals sealing his fate. Of course it’s circumstantial, the food of podcasts, the alt-right and alt-left, but there’s some essential truth to operating in the light, with information open to all citizens. Unfortunately overreach and the increasing encroachment of hostile forms of authoritarianism have spread eerily and with ease in recent times. Any form of true democracy on the ropes; beaten black and blue from every direction. To a near sci-fi trance of moody veiled African mysticism (a touch of Ethiopian vibes about it) and a slow frame or hand drum, the soon-to-be assassinated president’s monologue is left to be absorbed like a sagacious fatalistic omen: spooky stuff indeed.

A near lifetime’s experience and musicology is called upon for a mostly sophisticated and subtle amalgamation of the electroacoustic, trance, EDM, electronic-chamber music, techno ambience and soundtracks on an album that draws on all of Reynolds passions and emotional threads. Self-help guidance with the neurons fired-up, the mind open, Canary counterpoints mistrust with wonderment, alarm with the rational and the optimistic. It has taken a while to arrive, but Reynolds debut expanded album of thoughts and ideas is a mature statement of quality.    

          

Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.