Split

The music on this split release arrives remastered after its initial release via C40 cassette a year or so ago. Likeminded souls Eva Saelens (inca Ore) and Liz Harris (Grouper) are in brilliant form on these recordings, so it's great to hear them in a cleaned up format - though of course with these two, it's fairly difficult to tell where the muddy cassette hiss ends and the foggy, dusty old recordings begin. It seems as though Acuarela have struck up a decent balance between the characterful muck of the original recordings and the cleanliness inherent to a digital reissue, and the vaporous melancholy of Inca Ore on tracks like 'Chipiturca Eva Emmolada' and 'Michael I Will Meet You At The End Of Time' sounds marvellously intangible, each muffled electric keystroke and ghostly vocal annunciation rendered in a morose and ethereal haze. The Grouper tracks are a little harder to pin down, sounding a little less approachable than recent form has dictated: 'Little Gray Cat' is taut with spooky harmony and 'Poison Tree' is a disembodied moan. By the time we get to 'Fallow', Harris starts to come out of the shadows, blasting out a beacon of drone before withdrawing into the cloaked freeform melodies of 'A Light Change.' CD split releases seldom work out quite so well as vinyl or CD: there's no easy dividing line between the two artists - no side A, or side B - so instead there's always a possibility of disjointedness. These two artists complement each other brilliantly however, and this always feels resolutely like a 'proper' album. Highly Recommended.