Quiet Evenings

Husband/wife duo, Grant and Rachel Evans have found enough time out from running their ace Hooker Vision label, washing the dishes and doing the groceries, to sit back for a beautiful Quiet Evenings album. In case you missed all the fuss earlier in the year (and right now - her new LP is also out this week), Rachel Evans has been seducing listeners across the world with her Motion Sickness Of Time Travel project, while Mr Evans has been steadily amassing a fine catalogue as Nova Scotian Arms. Together, their 'Intrepid Trips' ventures into the most blissed New Age territories, simulating a form of coital synthesizer love in two extended sides. 'Manna From the New Age' spans the first, awash with luscious pastoral drones lapped by gently pulsing rhythms and occasionally gurgling melodies that bubble to the surface. And if we're not mistaken, that might be Rachel's voice making a distant appearance in the closing stages, ending this off in a blissed-out haze. 'Radiant Endless' is, however, quite different. This soundsphere feels more abstract and intriguing from the off, where scuttling, kinetic rhythms - perhaps crackling kindling, or some electro-acoustic trickery - lend a brittle sensitivity and wider sense of space, we're slowly alleviated from the ground/carpet/sofa at a glacial rate, the crackling fading to an ember glow while we pass through vast clouds of harmonised synth tones worshiping at the altar of Popol Vuh.  Limited copies - you know what to do. (Boomkat)