Snow Palms - Origin & Echo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Arbouretum - Song Of The Rose [COMPACT DISCS] Gatefold LP Jacket date 03/24/2017

Less than a year after the of sophomore album Origin and Echo, Snow Palms return with a powerful two-track EP almost 18 minutes of music in total. A-side 'Everything Ascending' sees Snow Palms mainstay David Sheppard's signature pulsing electronics and crystalline glockenspiels augmented by the production, keyboard and compositional skills of Matt Gooderson (Infadels), the vigorous, rhythmic clarinets of Christian Forshaw (Michael Nyman Band, Icebreaker) and the soaring vocal flights of Megan Gooderson. Over ten minutes in length, this is an undulating, inexorably unfurling odyssey, oscillating seamlessly between passages of mesmeric electronic rhythm, choral-enhanced minimalism and gorgeous, gamelan-like ambience. While there may be echoes of Four Tet, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Midori Takada's Mkwaju Ensemble along the way, ultimately 'Everything Ascending' proffers a uniquely rapturous sonic realm that is pure Snow Palms, predicated, according to Sheppard, on the idea of 'pushing on - striving for optimistic, sunlit uplands, even as the world around us seems to be turning darker. AA-side 'Circling', meanwhile, is a bold orchestral reimagining of one of the highlights from Origin and Echo. The work of fellow Village Green artist and renowned film music arranger/orchestrator Matt Dunkley (Inception, Black Swan, Iron Man), this is a brilliant repositioning of Snow Palms' music in the emotion-soaked cinematic idiom, the original's rich melodic palette and powerful rhythmic undertows beautifully reworked for elaborately layered, potently arranged strings.A Everything AscendingAA. CIRCLING (Arrangement for string quartet by Matt Dunkley)

Palms self-titled Ipecac Records debut is wrought with dark anthems and intense textures, shoring cinematic, introspective interludes with tidal waves of distortion. The emotional effect of Palms album is distinct it moves and is moving; a perpetually forward-lunging exploration of moments both epic and intimate as all-enveloping loudness bleeds into piercing near-silence. It's an evocative aesthetic that could score the soundtrack to dystopian films. These are songs with a sense of urgency, the inertia of breaking apart, and the energy of building it all again.