Jasper Tx & Anduin – The Bending of Light
It must be difficult following the career of Sweden’s Dag Rosenqvist. Certainly, bank accounts have likely shrunk faster than the UK economy, given the deluge of records he’s released under his Jasper Tx guise over the last few years. This is a musician that makes Machinefabriek look work-shy. That being said, this collaboration with Anduin is one you are unlikely going to want to miss, as this is a quality, quality record. Anduin, for the uninitiated, is Jonathan Lee one-third of instrumentalists Souvenir’s Young America and owner of the Virginian-based SMTG Limited.
This transatlantic union bears some remarkable results, with the duo utilising e-bow, contact microphones and rhodes in tandem with the usual array synths, piano, guitar and laptop. Influenced by direct quotes attributed to late astronomer Carl Sagan, concerning the formation of black holes and the vast, unknown darkness, ‘The Bending Light’ is a slow-burner that grows in strength with each passing minute.
Both ‘A Beam of Light Bends Back Upon Itself’ and ‘Producing Great Jets of Radiation’ set a tentative opening double-salvo with strange, grainy textures operating around subtle industrialized sounds. Things get particularly interesting on track three, ‘Everything Disappears In A Tunnel of Light’. A sheer fog of sound laced with little clicks, that brings to mind an Asmus Tietchens experiment, that soon develops into a grand piece via huge plumes of melodic resonance a la ‘Bladerunner’.
‘Where A Star Once Was’ is another favourite with its creeping, nocturnal guitar line spinning a web over sandstorming atmospherics clustering into something that hints towards a Labradford influence. The symphonic ‘Like The Footprints of An Invisible Man’ cements such praise for this record, injecting pace and urgency via deeply-toned heart-beating pulses over a delayed melody that is nothing short of exquisite. Which leaves the short ‘Walking In The Snow’ to end the release, utilising a clouded timbre to revive half-forgotten memories or events collected upon aged, sepia-toned photographs, rounding off what is SMTG’s best offering so far. A label that’s reputation is fast blooming into the USA’s long-lost answer to Type Records.