While the Internet's proclivity for describing spaces as 'liminal' has reached its stultifying peak, "Darling the Dawn" — the debut long player from ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT, the newly formed duo of La Force's Ariel Engle and Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Efrim Manuel Menuck — truly does evoke a sense of deliberate transition: into an unfamiliar situation, a different environment or an entirely new world.
Right from the start, when Engle sings, "When the birds don't sing the night says anything," they are inviting listeners to imagine it all. We've all seen the same night sky, but the possibilities therein are endless.
The guitar-free, orchestral shoegaze is propped up by a treasure trove of Montreal's independent music scene — to create the methodical drumming throughout the record, they enlisted SUUNS' Liam O'Neill, while Jessica Moss contributed mesmeric violin and Besnard Lakes' Jace Lacek signed on for mixing duties.
The personnel combine to create an uncanny dreamscape reminiscent of both the analogue and the digital, conjuring both minimalism and maximalism. Most of the tracks are built on a sense of droning inevitability, some building to that feeling over epic lengths like the ten-minute "We Live on a Fucking Planet and Baby That's the Sun" — a track whose blown-out tendrils sear and soar in equal measure.
But it's not a record concerned with drawn out monotony. In fact, "The Sons and Daughters of Poor Eternal" begins with almost devotional synths before warping into a kraut rock march. The lyrics are largely concerned with our natural world, which on paper makes an odd pairing with the otherworldly production. Still, something about the record's incantations is reminiscent of the time-travelling glimmer of folk traditionals; it's an album that was always here, like the sun, and yet it's calling toward the future.
"Darling the dawn has found us again," sings Engle. Like most art that dares to ponder difficult transitions, the world Engle and Menuck imagine is one built on unyielding hope. Otherwise, why bother?
(Constellation)Right from the start, when Engle sings, "When the birds don't sing the night says anything," they are inviting listeners to imagine it all. We've all seen the same night sky, but the possibilities therein are endless.
The guitar-free, orchestral shoegaze is propped up by a treasure trove of Montreal's independent music scene — to create the methodical drumming throughout the record, they enlisted SUUNS' Liam O'Neill, while Jessica Moss contributed mesmeric violin and Besnard Lakes' Jace Lacek signed on for mixing duties.
The personnel combine to create an uncanny dreamscape reminiscent of both the analogue and the digital, conjuring both minimalism and maximalism. Most of the tracks are built on a sense of droning inevitability, some building to that feeling over epic lengths like the ten-minute "We Live on a Fucking Planet and Baby That's the Sun" — a track whose blown-out tendrils sear and soar in equal measure.
But it's not a record concerned with drawn out monotony. In fact, "The Sons and Daughters of Poor Eternal" begins with almost devotional synths before warping into a kraut rock march. The lyrics are largely concerned with our natural world, which on paper makes an odd pairing with the otherworldly production. Still, something about the record's incantations is reminiscent of the time-travelling glimmer of folk traditionals; it's an album that was always here, like the sun, and yet it's calling toward the future.
"Darling the dawn has found us again," sings Engle. Like most art that dares to ponder difficult transitions, the world Engle and Menuck imagine is one built on unyielding hope. Otherwise, why bother?
