If the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey overshot the great apes and instead appeared before a mid-'00s rock band, the moment might culminate in something like Light Conductor. The partnership of Stephen Ramsay (Young Galaxy) and Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes) offers up five songs in tectonic waves, their instrumentation carefully modulating into a slow-burn intensity.
Eleven-minute opener "A Bright Resemblance" lets a ticking pattern anchor its euphoric drift, layering synths to envelop and dissipate with unhurried confidence. "Chapel of the Snows" carries that same pattern into what feels like an extended outro, but finds a different release in the static roar that engulfs its latter half.
"Far From the Warming Sun" takes a more inward turn, constructing a foreboding atmosphere out of foggy sounds. The relatively brief three minutes of "When the Robot Hits the Water" feel more transitional than self-sustaining, but it functions as a tonal reset before the most conventional song here: the album-closing "Light Conductor," which drops psych-pop scaffolding onto the album's abstract patterns.
Fuzzed-up guitars, thrumming bass and vocals (including from Young Galaxy's Catherine McCandless) bring Sequence One back to Earth in a glorious, harmonic conclusion. After 30-some minutes of abstract sound, refracting it through a tangible structure amplifies all of Sequence One's impact.
(Constellation)Eleven-minute opener "A Bright Resemblance" lets a ticking pattern anchor its euphoric drift, layering synths to envelop and dissipate with unhurried confidence. "Chapel of the Snows" carries that same pattern into what feels like an extended outro, but finds a different release in the static roar that engulfs its latter half.
"Far From the Warming Sun" takes a more inward turn, constructing a foreboding atmosphere out of foggy sounds. The relatively brief three minutes of "When the Robot Hits the Water" feel more transitional than self-sustaining, but it functions as a tonal reset before the most conventional song here: the album-closing "Light Conductor," which drops psych-pop scaffolding onto the album's abstract patterns.
Fuzzed-up guitars, thrumming bass and vocals (including from Young Galaxy's Catherine McCandless) bring Sequence One back to Earth in a glorious, harmonic conclusion. After 30-some minutes of abstract sound, refracting it through a tangible structure amplifies all of Sequence One's impact.