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Landing, "Brocade"
Landing's latest full length album is more of a single symphony than fiveseparate tracks; Brocade is not a song-based album but one longcontinuous work. The music unwinds at a leisurely pace and is bestappreciated all in one sitting. Strange Attractors
Brocade is largely instrumental (only "How to be Clean" has anyvocals) and is bathed in analog synthesizers with lots of guitareffects. There's an unmistakable '70s prog rock sound going on and thepure synths on "Music for ThreeSynthesizers" are very '80s sounding to me, but Landing keeps it modernandfresh, without playing like they're simply digging up old rockcorpses. The music is hypnotic, repetitive, and layered, but by nomeans dull or heavy.
Despite the building layers it has a very open andspacious feel, a feel which is reinforced by titles like "Loft" and"Yon," bringing up images of empty skies and vast distances (echoed aswell in the rather barren landscape on the album's cover)."Spiral Arms" is similarly well-named; if you could put a galaxyinto sound, it might just sound like this. The static buzz carried overfrom "Yon" gives way to delicate acoustic guitar and electronic swoopsand blowing winds. "How to be Clean" is a rocker and addsenough movement and energy to the mix to keep this guitar-rock girlhappy.
I found it difficult to listen to Brocade at work; inaddition to the usual cube farm noise and coworker interruptions,Winamp's pauses between tracks made the transitions jarring, mostnotably between "Yon" and "Spiral Arms" and between "Spiral Arms" and"How to be Clean." This is one to listen to at home with a glass ofwine in a darkened room or on a long lonely car trip, and it'scertainly not one for the iPod Shuffle.
