“Lament“ is the first full CD release by Acrifolia: a duo formed by Martin Corral and Duncan Meadows (the latter also joined Marconi Union in 2010).
There’s not very much information about this duo, apart from the fact that both are using “acoustic and electronic recording techniques to produce an ambient sound world in which traditional instrumentation combines with contemporary soundscapes.”
In fact that sums up Lament perfectly well, too.
Sometimes, the acoustic instruments set the main theme, like the piano and guitar on “Cyclic”.
In other tracks, the stretched string sounds somewhat resemble the sounds of the of the Stars of the Lid (“Caldera”).
With its slowly descending string chords, the title track sounds like an stretched electronic re-interpretation of Arvo Pärt’s classic“Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten” – until it fades into a slow single piano theme concluding the album.
Though the music on this album is very slow and unhurried, it is not exactly very ‘quiet’.
In the background there is a constant environmental, hissing noise vaguely indicating far away cities or industries.
I wondered if some of the compositions on Lament would have profited from a more restrained, open, quiet sound. But this ‘noise’ is also the Acrifolia trademark, comparable to the intended sound of tape hiss on the Rod Modell Deepchord recordings.
In fact, the use of these sounds also is a perfect tool to ‘mask’ outside environmental sounds and include it in the music, which in fact is what good ‘ambient’ music, as in the classic definition, should do.