Helios - Espera - Beryl - VINYL LP

The catalog of American composer Keith Kenniff spans over a dozen releases as Helios and nearly as many as Goldmund since 2004. Kenniff's music deals with subtlety, and the variance between these projects loosely follows a few signifiers; Goldmund favors post-classical piano, Mint Julep, a project with his partner Hollie, is shoegaze pop, while the lines around his Helios project are intentionally hazier. Within the alias, Kenniff glides between minimal ambient electronics and more robust instrumentation, all run through his mini-cassette recorder for a distinct wobble. 2018's Veriditas, his first Helios LP on Ghostly International, found Kenniff shaping verdant landscapes of harmonic sound, focusing on texture over structure. He followed it up in 2020 with Domicile, an even quieter synth-toned ode to the indoors. Now he returns to the electro-acoustic movement that marked much of his earlier output; the music of Espera is rich, livelier, and perhaps the most singular in his run. Titles are telling in Kenniff's work, and Espera, a Spanish word meaning Inchwait,Inch speaks to the producer's patient and cinematic craft. The record balances engagement and contemplation with a billowing accessible lightness, and reveals Helios at a compelling intersection, composing songs as vivid and three-dimensional as they are characteristically modernist and understated.InchPatience is something I aspire to in my life and profession,Inch says Kenniff, who recorded Espera at night, his preferred mode, when life is uncluttered and unrushed. While the Helios project has fit neatly into the beatless category in recent years, Kenniff felt a natural pull to pivot for these sessions, embracing downtempo percussion, both acoustic and electronically rendered. Arrangements also swelled with layers of guitar and piano, made familiar with his usual tape treatment giving the material a warmer, cl