Students of Decay

Alex Cobb – ‘Passage to Morning’ CD
Composed and labored over for many months between 2009-2011, “Passage to Morning” is the first full-length Alex Cobb has released since Taiga Remains’ well-received “Wax Canopy” (Digitalis, 2009). Sonically however, the two records could not be more dissimilar, with “Passage to Morning” recalling more the meditative guitar minimalism of “Ribbons of Dust,” his prior release for the Root Strata label. Here, glacially moving, eternally receding drones sourced from strings, tape loops and analog synthesizer are the order of the day, expertly arranged into succinct and imminently listenable compositions. Comparisons made of Cobb’s previous recordings to Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann’s work as Mirror prove particularly apt here, as “Passage to Morning” trades in the same sort of devotional, faraway sound design for which the pair have been justly praised. “The Immediate Past” opens the record, with billowing, lulling tones hanging thick in the air like a struck bell frozen in time. Later, “Bewildered by its Blue” juxtaposes deep, brooding low-end tones with crackling tape noise and truly hypnotic cycles of analog synthesizer. That this is Cobb’s first full-length under his own name is no coincidence, as here he offers us his most intimate recordings to date.

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