In contrast to November’s The Aleph, prolific Teesside artist Ivan The Tolerable’s latest album, Black Water/Brown Earth, sounds initially a lot more organic and freer for fans of ITT mainman Oli Heffernan’s other involvement with King Champion Sounds. Birds chirp, rivers wake timeously, if in the background, and the sax is more tuneful and structured. So, although these two albums are very unalike there are similarities that justify the intentionally off-kilter release schedules. The ten-minute early highlight that is ‘Slow Deep Salt And Silent Black’ builds on an even slower looping beat and possibly a xylophone. Generally lighter of touch but heavier of mind than anything on the preceding album.
Subtle looping bass motifs and droning guitar, gentle chimes and chirps persist. The claustrophobic hibitions of ‘The Labyrinth’ ply a more paradoxical furrow, like breakfast by a Blue Jazz river but so short as to be little more than an interlude while ‘Moon Milk’ twerks astrally over ambient synths that swarm in and out, around a two-note bassline. Subtle, discreet, sublime.
Elsewhere, gentle intonations of morning with almost childlike embellishments and rhythmic beats, and more flute, might lull and comfort but nothing ever sits exactly in time which might make this Ivan The Tolerable’s most frustrating album at times but also one of his most interesting to really delve into aurally. ‘Sawdust’ is another sonic interlude, little more than a purge of effects and ideas but in a place where effects and ideas are plentiful. However, it’s centrepieces ‘Seaweed’ and ‘Signs’ that provide the pulsing, grooving dual that makes the second half of Black Water/Brown Earth a sheer delight. The former being simply kind of folky with a bit of sitar but utterly immersive, the latter oddly upbeat with eastern vibes and tubular rhythms, combined it is nearly twenty minutes of serene experimentalism.
The shorter tracks are perhaps designed to temper the mood or counter and reflect the passage of time on an album of mostly structured improvisation and it may only be closer ‘Memory’ that is truly free to roam musically, its long jazzy segments skipping off into the farthest corners of the left field…
Under the Hills Nearby 