Monday, January 14, 2008

Eluvium-Copia






Eluvium is an artist that I approached with extreme hesitation. After seeing Matthew Cooper's latest album from his project better known as Eluvium appearing on mid-year best-of lists and garnering many positive reviews from random music communities I troll, I figured it was time to see what all the hub-ub was about, especially with my new found fascination of post-rock bands, such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, and Yndi Halda. However, I'm very glad I actually gave it a chance. While mostly just Smith and his piano, backed by a synth-orchestra, Copia is a wonderfully engaging and lush listen. While his piano melodies are nice, and the synth tracks are wondrous (in fact, the all-synth "Seeing You Off the Edges" is probably my favorite track on the album-simply magnificently dark and brooding), the most consistently solid tracks are those that incorporate both his piano and the synths like "Indoor Swimming at the Space Station", Anyway, excellent background music, and definitely recommended for anyone who has an appreciation of beautiful music.

For fans of: Explosions in the Sky, Tangerine Dream, Yndi Halda, Clint Mansell