Spectreview: Daniel Wohl – État

-DARK ORANGE-

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Brooklyn composer Daniel Wohl’s new electro-acoustic project, État, was “established with the goal of enabling contemporary American composers to realize creative ambitions that might not otherwise be achievable.” Now, the inner cynic in all of us could translate this as “we really just wanted to make beautiful music but you have to have a sales pitch to do anything nowadays,” because in 2019 it’s genuinely hard to be impressed by production techniques alone. Yet even that outlook doesn’t come close to diminishing how breathtaking these songs are. État is at once cinematic, grandiose and variable in texture and color, a highly entertaining listen that’s obviously created with a ton of care. True to Wohl’s words, the production is indeed creative, conjuring plenty of bewitching moments out of minute details. Its best tracks convey naturalistic and architectural imagery across a paradoxically wide temporal spectrum, simultaneously ancient and futuristic. On “Orbit,” brushed snares and plunked keyboard chords ripple like raindrops on a bed of oceanic synths, leading to a chiming, dread-filled coda gracefully punctuated by silence, a satellite racing across storm clouds. “Primal” hints at violence without going for the throat, mixing violin and chaotic chattering percussion into a metronomic, frayed assault as if aboard the Nostromo. The album moves steadily, more ambience than ambient, with a killer pair of climactic closing tracks, the stirring, string-led “Dream Sequence” and the mysterious, triumphant collage-like IDM sampler of “Subray.” État may not be entirely revelatory, but it’s truly sublime in its pursuit of crystalline beauty, and that’s a accomplishment in itself.

Recommended for those that stay for the end credits.