COBB, ALEX - Passage to Morning

The first full-length Alex Cobb has released since Taiga Remains well-received Wax Canopy (Digitalis, 2009). Sonically however, the two records could not be more dissimilar, with Passage to Morning recalling more the meditative guitar minimalism of Ribbons of Dust, his prior release for the Root Strata label. Here, glacially moving, eternally receding drones sourced from strings, tape loops and analog synthesizer are the order of the day, expertly arranged into succinct and imminently listenable compositions. Comparisons made of Cobbs previous recordings to Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemanns work as Mirror prove particularly apt here, as Passage to Morning trades in the same sort of devotional, faraway sound design for which the pair have been justly praised. The Immediate Past opens the record, with billowing, lulling tones hanging thick in the air like a struck bell frozen in time. Later, Bewildered By Its Blue juxtaposes deep, brooding low-end tones with crackling tape noise and tr