(2023) Seaming To - Dust Gatherers
Review:
When Bjork sang of an ‘Army of Me’, it evoked not just the powers she could summon if wronged, but also her multiplicity as an artist. That is still more the case with the enigmatic, dazzlingly versatile artist, Seaming To. Though working here mostly solo, she has the capacity of a full ensemble, not just in terms of her remarkable vocal range and multi-instrumental virtuosity, but in her ability to shapeshift effortlessly, to merge between genres, and change colour at will. Dust Gatherers is a unique achievement, an album of unclassifiable, magic-realist avant-pop. Drawing on and alluding to classical, jazz, blues, pop, and electronica, Dust Gatherers always wears its eclecticism weightlessly, airily, dreamily… Beguiling, evocative, emotionally fraught, but never putting a foot wrong, Dust Gatherers is an Army of Her. To manifest Seaming To’s singular vision, Dust Gatherers is assisted in part by critically acclaimed guest musicians: Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford (slide guitar and electronic effects), Homelife’s Matthew Batty (violin), Justin Lingard (viola) and Paddy Steer (double bass, pedal steel guitar), Olivia Moore (violin), and Semay Wu (cello). The album begins with ‘AnOverture’, which feels like a portal into Seaming’s dreamworld. Imagine entering a wormhole, the nightworld of Charles Ives’ ‘Central Park in the Dark’, perhaps a dark corridor of glistening chimes, before processed strings – deep and consoling – rise to a reverberant crest, then fall in an elegant heap.This is a place full of love and longing. ‘Blessing’ affirms this, with its wish for us to be conferred “in our sleep with rest/in our dreams with vision/in our waking with a calm mind…” It’s a prayer, laden with all the qualities for which it asks. Set against a simple, but heavenly choral see-saw, To overlaps herself, with overdubs and harmonies, ascending into the upper register and splitting up into several beings. ‘Tousles’ follows, occupying an ethereal realm between the real and the processed, the pure and the synthesised, the minimal and the voluptuous, an arpeggiated weave of silk, metal and plastic.There are hints of The Associates’ Billy Mackenzie in the soulful Sturm and Drang of her vocals – silvery, Busby Berkeley magical. ‘Brave’, meanwhile, sees her sub-divide once again into multiple voices – spectral, supernatural, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale etched in keyboards. — fiveriserecords
Track List:
01. AnOverture
02. Blessing
03. Tousles
04. Brave
05. Traveller
06. Water Flows
07. Xenanmax
08. Hitchhiker
09. Look Away
10. Pleasures Are Meaningless
11. Tenderly
Media Report:
Genre: art pop, chamber pop, electronic
Country: London, UK
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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