Reissue by Aguirre of Ian William Craig’s first album, composed of meandering piano improvisations and decaying tape loops shrouded in thick clouds of white noise. This precedes Ian’s notable experimentation with the human voice, although at times strands of voices emerge and crackle briefly from the static. The use of just piano makes the sound feel primitive and vulnerable, but the layers of white noise render it cryptic all the same—something Ian explains as trying to remove the struggle for expression. I imagine this is what a more degraded Chopin’s Nocturnes might sound like; there’s a similar kind of subdued, raw melancholia, driven almost entirely by the piano. No FCCs.

1. (8:11) *** Lovers; Cascading (Part I)—Gliding piano loops, watery drone and feedback that swell above the piano towards the end.
2. (7:32) ** Lovers; Cascading (Part II)—Larger-than-life, stupefying waves of white noise and discreet layers of piano.
3. (5:53) ** Wherever Two Circles can be Drawn—Clean piano. Earnest, brutally exposed, jarring.
4. (7:50) Open Passage, Closed Passage, Hidden Passage—Continues from the previous track. Loops of short, insistent piano riffs. Becomes more liturgical three minutes in, joined by faded traces of vocals and peacefully dissonant layers of feedback.
5. (10:58) **** Expanding Hope into Caverns—Hypnotic, rolling piano and cavernous, expanding layers of noise. Devastatingly beautiful.
6. (3:26) Everything and Tired—Deep echoing piano, unsettling.