SubVersion Stop 70: Relmic Statute - Morning Tapes (Hibernate Recordings 010)

Subtracting melancholia can sway ambient enthusiasts. With solemnity underpinning, Hibernate Recording's tenth foray into physical and digital availability - Relmic Statute's "Morning Tapes” - is also their longest, but is it the most accomplished? The past stock utilised acoustic treatments, drones, and the string instrument family, whereas this is the first to fashion itself on tape loops. If you're thinking degraded William Basinski-alike tonalities, David Horner, aka Relmic Statute will educate you gently.

There's a fine-grained, Sawako-reminiscent delicacy to Horner's sampledelia. He splices field recordings assembled from cassettes and old 1/4 inch tape. Happiness is a tangible objective - it's usually about how much you invest, but you won't always get the rewards. Highlight “Illustration” assures Horner's pursuing older technology isn't just a nostalgist's wet dream, but in actual fact a triumph of perserverant vigour and reconvened semblance. From the opening recording's delayed sonorities, through “A Test For Tapes And Memories”, which could be a more abstract jingle from The Caretaker's studio, the listener is bestowed with a warmth almost fragile, ever receding, but paradoxically richer than a vast quantity of pure drone recordings - it's dense but fleeting all at once.

There are periods of atmospheric turbulence to stop “Morning Tapes” sidetracking into total chillout zone, but no texture-tantrums - dripping water on “Enarso Lipathe” is soft in pronounciation, voices and guitar on aforementioned “Illustration” fade as the memory does. Forever tempered by impermanence, but with enough staying power for repeated hearings, “Morning Tapes” is like a hot cup of coffee when you rise - bubbling under the surface, indebted to containment, and kindest in gentle hands. Unacceptance can frustrate, lead to insecurity and cause you to dumb down your aspirations, so let's hope Relmic Statute, and Hibernate, will receive their due recognition.


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