At Wetherby - At Wetherby [Sound In Silence 133]

Released via the Athens-based Ambient staple that is the Sound In Silence label on September 28th, 2k26 is "At Wetherby", the self-titled album debut by the duo of the same name comprised of Philipp Bückle and Richard Adams, the latter of Memory Drawings and The Declining Winter fame just to name two of his many projects here. After meeting first back in 1999 it took the two artists invlvd a quarter of a century and a cultural funding programme to finally join forces musically, opening their firstling with "Don't You Dare Ever Show Your Face In Stanks" which is way more tender and comforting than you'd ever expect from its title alone with its calm innate melancholia and embedded - and probably slightly processed - Field Recordings and an overall grainy vintage sound whereas "An Ode To Armley Gyratory" provides even more granular fluttering and carefully overdriven aesthetics alongside what seem to be mechanical movements taken out of what could be an agricultural context embedded in soft Ambient pads before the subsequent journey "From Baildon Ilkey" introduces soft chiming bass tones and a recognizable harmonic motif on repeat as well as a dreamlike, slightly psychedelic overall atmosphere. With "Riveresque" we're met with a set of mumbling, incomprehensible Field Recordings of human voices in conversation and a fogged out, almost Oval'esque otherworldliness which somehow evokes memories of the 'Ekkehard Ehler Plays...' series on Staubgold released decades ago before further evolving into a densely layered quasi-Ambient maelstrom of broodingly intense quality, "The Sutton Street Subway Tunnel Waltz" is not a waltz but opens with the crackling sounds of digital decay later overcome by twisted, slightly off-kilter loop harmonics and twangy reprocessed string pluckings whilst the "Ruddlehead Viaduct" comes full circle with its calming Deep Listening Music approach and almost rural, unscathed autumnal feel. Classic Sound In Silence, even though a little more raw and noisy than most of the labels catalogue.