It has been seven years since the last Rattle album and it feels as though in the down time Theresa Wrigley and Katharine Eira Brown have chosen to strip their drum and vocal sound down to the absolute bare bones, as if Sequence was too busy. They have stuck with the formula of two tracks per LP side but, with one being substantially longer then the other allowing the second to develop into something ritualistic, pushing the two players further into hypnotic territory.
Stripping music down to its most basic communication methods and leaving acres of space through which the sound can travel allows the listener fully immerse themselves in any slow evolution that the longer tracks might follow. The clean voices are echoed and looped in places, and the pieces become more involved, with different portions testing their hypnotic capabilities. Reduced to a tense heartbeat, the quiet passages of reflection gradually build into a satisfying cymbal-splashing motion that comes close to overwhelming.
With four variations on the central theme, the listener is drawn to the repeated mantra-like vocals, simple phrases considered and worried at until they start to lose their recognised meaning and become something else, conjoining with the rhythms but with the relationship between the two evolving as the focus changes. Towards the end of the album, the rhythms turn slightly more complicated, but seem to hang in the air as the vocals dissipate, becoming sparser.Saving the most sophisticated sound until last gives the listener a sense that there is a gradual build to something transcendent, with the simple phrases retaining a mystery that allows the listener opportunities to inject their own meanings and experiences. Encircle is an album that starts out appearing so simple, yet the minute details that are gradually uncovered as it is replayed make it eminently satisfying.
What a welcome return. Let’s hope it isn’t another seven years until the next.-Mr Olivetti-
