Recollection

Since signing with Kranky, Jacob Longs Earthen Sea project has played with the conventions of ambient and dub techno, slowing down the tempo and sometimes removing beats altogether, and incorporating household sounds on 2022s Ghost Poems. Recollection was created following an immersion into the ECM catalog, and Long had the idea of reconsidering Earthen Sea as a piano trio. He recorded live instrumentation, then chopped it up and sampled it, resulting in a spacious, dubby form of organic ambient jazz, sometimes recalling acid jazz acts like Red Snapper. Tracks such as "Another Space" sound like theyre being performed in zero gravity, with trippy waves of effects floating around a supple yet steady rhythm. "Sunlit Leaving" is the most detached and druggy track here, with a rhythm which drags even as it feels like its suspended in mid-air. "Neon Ruins" has a darker mood but also shines brightly in its own way. "Clear Photograph" is more relaxing downtempo with keyboards that hug like a warm blanket. "Cloudy Vagueness" and "Abstract, tell" both fittingly move away from trip-hop rhythms into more ambient terrain, with the latter actually being surprisingly suspenseful. The straightforward groove and calming keyboards of "White Sky" feel like a great relief in comparison. ~ Paul Simpson