Music Review//Andrew Wyatt - Descender

Fans of pastoral suites and organic soundscapes will surely love Andrew Wyatt's (Miike Snow) new album Descender. Seba Rashii Culture Zine listens and expounds...

The cover artwork of an album can often say very little about the music inside it but the almost thriller like scene depicted on the cover artwork initially deceives those who still savour the visual aspect of music. The humand mind sees darkness and dim lighting and almost subconsiously espects something bad to happen and it's this underlying tension that informs the music on many occasions. 


It may be unintended, or it may be intended, but there is definite Lynchian quality to the often desolate sounding orchestration. The songs often buzz with an underlying tension that belies their optimistic front but there are moments of excellence throughout. The ice tinged She's Changed mixes the sombre orchestration with a subtle film score like production and the title track takes a dark circus approach to the music with swirling jazz effects creating a sense of falling down a dark tunnel into another world. 

As a whole the album is somewhat akin to encountering a perfectly formed timeslip in your favorite neighborhood, a flashback to darker but much more hopeful times. You can almost picture the worlds worries falling away as you listen to the wonderful In Paris They Know To Build a Monument, a whimsical like musical journey that brings the album out of the semi darkness it previously occupied.  A seriously good listen that revels in the shades of grey that life throws up with reckless abandon!

Reviewed by Sebastian Gahan.

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