Middlemarch - The Mirror And The Light - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

2019 . The duo of Dimitris Avramidis and Ross Baker, better known as Middlemarch, join the Carpe Sonum roster after the quietly devastating Wolf Hall, issued on Time Released Sound in 2014. This disc of remixes retains the magisterial heft and splendor of that sterling debut, with all the album's participants building on the duo's template while adding numerous idiosyncratic touches of their own. The opening InchVisitationInch, strangely enough, doesn't really prepare you for the detached, pixillated sparsescape of InchThe Dead Complain of their BurialInch but it's cinematic vocabulary is as revealing in it's own atmospheric way as it's predecessor. Across the record's timespan, the collective of remixers that includes Mick Chillage, Maps and Diagrams, Darren McClure, Ambidextrous, Neotropic, Off Land, and others wrestle with the duo's blossoming and Budd-ing tendencies, reflecting the subtly shifting piano motifs and flurrying electronic textures in their own inimitable fashion. Chillage especially shines, as his interpretation of InchA Painter's EyeInch is a thing of regal beauty. Neotropic's post-classical side is also especially notable, as her version of InchVisitationInch channels a strange, quasi-glitchy/ivory-tickled hybrid, maximizing a myriad of odd warbles and Derbyshire-esque touches to produce over six minutes of pure pleasure. So rarely do remix albums succeed on their own merits; here's one where the sum easily transcends it's component parts, setting a new gold standard by which successive others will no doubt be judged. Album Tracks 1. Visitation 2. The Dead Complain of Their Burial (Ems Piano Remix) 3. Angels (Off Land Remix) 4. The Black Book (Cubus Remix) 5. Crows (Maps and Diagrams Wave Mix) 6. Across the Narrow Sea (Tegh Remix) 7. A Painter's Eye (Mick Chillage Alt-Reprise Mix) 8. Angels (Rezo Glonti Remix) 9. The Dead Co