Reviewer: Louis Haines

Released: 16th March 2015

Label: Bella Union

Two albums in less than a year from Temporary Residence Ltd. label mates Matthew Cooper and Mark T. Smith is suggestive of a very healthy creative flow. With their eponymous debut gaining well-warranted praise last April, the pair didn’t wait for any more encouragement before embarking on album number two.

Opener ‘Escapers’ stutters and jerks along, two producers resetting the track and restarting the computer for the project ahead. An explicit sample explains, “I wanted to do something that I don’t know how to do”, and the intrinsic anxieties of this opener are given voice.

‘Springworlds’ moves from the glitchy groundwork of the first track into the wide-eyed, aurora-gazing pastures that the pair’s respective projects are so well known for. The choral drone swelling beneath sleepy ambiences, bleeps, an embryonic heartbeat, all create a womb-like comfort that regresses the listener right to where Inventions want them.

‘Maze Of Woods’ pushes and pulls like all good post-rock. The midsection of almost every song brings with it a total rehash of the track’s main focus, never allowing for complacency, and ensuring strong feelings of progression throughout.

Just as varied, but perhaps more experimental than their previous album, ‘Maze Of Woods’ is never short on ideas, and keeps pace with it’s own theme beautifully. Throughout there’s an impression of wandering through the wilds, and the pair’s noted inspiration shines through. The soundscapes extracted from this central theme are vivid, gorgeous, and multifaceted, but then these are two individuals not known for anything less.

Keeping things in the arena they’ve now established for themselves with Inventions, the munificent swells and walls of sound Mark T. Smith’s Explosions In The Sky are known for aren’t even close to being touched on this record. That’s fine, because ‘Maze Of Woods’ occupies a different plain, a more embryonic one that finds its stand out moments in a subtler way.

Tags: Album Reviews, Reviews, Bella Union, Inventions

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