Lawrence English, "Lonely Women's Club"

The two pieces that comprise this album are quite similar and each fills an entire side.  The first composition, "Lonely Women's Club," is the better of the two, as its evolution is much more apparent than that of the flipside ("Cigarette Burn").  Built upon an endlessly sustained organ chord of no particular mood, the title piece nonetheless offers a number of small pleasures in its swaying oscillations, warmth, and glacially swelling transitions into new chords.  While it never develops into anything more, it is certainly mesmerizing in a lulling, languorous, and womb-like way, which I suppose makes perfect sense given that it was created in the middle of the night in the presence of a baby.  Taken completely on its own merits and decontextualized from its surroundings, it is an undeniably lovely and nuanced piece.  Unfortunately, it does have a context, which is why Lonely Women's Club is something of a disappointment for me: the title piece would make a perfect closer for a more significant release, but here it is basically the album's whole raison d'être.

Case in point: "Cigarette Burn" is little more than a less inspired repeat of the A-side's formula, again sustaining a neutral and gently oscillating organ chord for 20 minutes.  The only significant change is that English does not make any overt chord changes at all this time around.  Instead, the original chord drones on in a tranquil, near-static haze for the entirely of its duration.  There is a great deal of subtle activity taking place, as quiet tones drift in and out of the chord to make almost imperceptible changes in coloration, but it does not amount to anything quite as resonant or absorbing as its predecessor.  If this were a CD, I would say that it at least serves to sustain the immersive reverie of the album's first half, but it seems an awful lot like filler with the vinyl format–it makes far more sense to just keep repeatedly playing the A-side than it does to flip the record after 20 minutes.

Ultimately, it is impossible to critique this album without also critiquing the entire minimal drone genre: "Lonely Women's Club" is a fine addition to the canon, but it does not offer any real twist that would justify its existence in light of the many similar pieces that already exist.  Bluntly put, Lawrence English holding an organ chord for 20 minutes does not say anything that someone else holding a chord for 20 minutes has not already said.  The flaw with this record is not that English failed in his execution, but that he chose to operate within constraints that almost completely preclude discernible personality.  As such, Lonely Women's Club is essential only to rabid pastoral drone completists (if they exist) or fans of extreme subtlety (an oxymoron that it definitely delivers).  For everyone else, it is basically just a pleasant, uncharacteristic diversion: there are already better and more substantial minimal drone and/or Lawrence English albums out there waiting to be heard.