Narrator drifts deeper with ‘Depart On All Sides’
Drone trio returns with second full-length of sprawling, synth-laden ambient music
<a href=”http://narrating.bandcamp.com/album/depart-on-all-sides”>Depart On All Sides by Narrator</a>
It’s been nearly a full year since Narrator, the trio of Nick Lowery (Mono Lisa), Scott Irvine (Follicles), and Nathan Springer (Wet Sweatshirt, Plant Parenthood), dropped their debut recording. That initial release featured a brief but promising mix of coasting kosmische musik that was as eager and exciting as it was inwardly meditative. Now, the trio delivers another round of aural escapades with its second full-length, Depart On All Sides.
Recorded live over the course of a single day in January 2015 with Nathaniel Kiser at Sleeping Partner Studios, the session finds Narrator coasting along in a fluid drift of textured synth tones, distant and delirious vocal murmurs, and downright elegiac loops of dimly optimistic sounds. The band performs best as a patient but propulsive unit, floating down a stream and collecting stray noises along the way. “Arrived At All Times” and “Cowboy Hats” maintain a simmer of muted, melancholy color while “Technicolor Afterlife” and “Everybody Rides the Carousel” jam out to a vague but arresting celestial raga.
Although Lowery recently moved back to Memphis, the band plans to keep up activities per usual. Depart On All Sides is out now and streaming below, but stay tuned for a cassette edition to drop via Shadow Trash Tape Group.
★★★★☆