Spectreview: Elias Hampton – Ever-go

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The invention of portable music players not only changed how we listen to music, but how we could potentially perceive the world. A mundane bus ride becomes a profound cross-examination of human behavior, a hiking trip morphs naturally into a cinematic masterpiece. This development spurred new-age, music made for the background, not without ambition but without presence. Elias (aka Bunky) Hampton’s Ever-go is a series of songs composed for academic purposes; the album is three separate pieces spread over twelve tracks, mostly under the tutelage of U of W classes and partially conceived for a movement-based performance. Judging by its overall volume level it appears to be unmastered, though music as intentionally hushed as this may have suffered under a few compressors or a limiter. The collection seems directly influenced by Brian Eno’s recent output, with a dose of Akira Yamaoka’s dark musings, Cornelius’ electro-collage and maybe a splash of Harold Budd, but one thing Ever-go is not is repetitive. It’s a short listen that shifts organically, though there’s a clear divide between its extended pieces. Tracks 1-5 simmer melodically with opaline colors, from the fog-emergent specter of opener “the land is calling for its people” to the melancholy river ritual of “communion” to the beastly discordance of “moon.” Tracks 6-10 are more atonal and academic, closer to waveform experiments with field recordings than transportive locales, but the fluctuating brain fluid filling “foams” and the churning driftwood of “incidental alloy” still fit within the album’s umbral mood. As the album draws to a close, Hampton finally introduces the kind of pensive, chorused guitar he brings to experimental rock act Chanel Beads, and its presence on the enigmatic title track makes for a soothing, releasing closer. Alternatively stark and beautiful, Ever-go exists in the dreamlike forest of Spielberg’s E.T., an alien landscape thick with foliage and bathed in moonlight, and even though its lack of decibels may not allow it to leap off the speakers, it’s a world worth visiting.

Recommended for math homework.