Nomad

South Korean ambient group Tengger spent years slowly developing their patient cosmic soundscapes, reaching a new level of expression on 2019s Spiritual 2. Comprised of vocalist/harmonium player Itta and synth player Marqido, Tengger found their highest form with Spiritual 2s combination of Krautrock repetition, synth exploration, and gentle, new agey drones. Follow-up album Nomad takes a similar path, diverging only slightly into more meditative moments and a mild shift towards more involved vocal contributions. The record is made up of just six pieces, each of which takes a slightly different approach to the duos sound, but they all gel into a cohesive whole. Airy opener Achime ties together floating vocal harmonies and filed recordings of chirping birds with a brassy, repetitive synth sequence. Spare percussive sounds eventually drop in, and the song sounds somewhere between Popol Vuhs soundtrack work for Werner Herzogs epic 1972 film Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Clusters pastoral minimal synthesis. The vocals are more prominent than on Spiritual 2, even if theyre not the driving force behind the songs. Instead, Ittas voice adds another textural layer, like a more new age version of Groupers buried singing or Julianna Barwicks stacked self-harmonizing. The static drum machine rhythms and synth arpeggios of Eurasia are about as rowdy as Tengger gets on Nomad, and even then they rely more on subtle melodic shifts than sweeping dynamic changes to move the song along. The track washes by for nearly six minutes, barely changing outside of its simple two-chord shift, but working perfectly within that minimalism. On this track in particular, Tengger tap into an influence that wasnt as clear on earlier releases, recalling the unhurried groove of Manuel Gottschings 1984 minimal techno blueprint E2-E4. While the vocals on Nomad are often lyricless, song titles like Water and Flow and recorded sounds of running rivers add to an aquatic theme that runs through the album. Theres a watery essence to the music itself, too. The record ends with the ten-minute track Flow, one of many songs based on a simple, unchanging synth sequence that allows for other elements to drift subtly in and out of frame. Like much of the rest of the album, Flow watches as patches of vocals or long synth tones rise and fall in the mix, with gentle water sounds coming in at the halfway mark. Nomads repetition is never static, but moves shapelessly and quietly like a calm river. ~ Fred Thomas