Carried By Waves: Softly Held Together
August 8, 2012 Leave a comment
Electronic based music works best when it is emotive, triggering an instant visceral response long before the cerebral revs are cranked. The uplifting and celebratory makes you want to move while the musing and wistful transports you from the moment. And so we have the very fine debut album Softly Held Together by Carried By Waves which does both.
The Cork based artist marries gorgeous synths that swirl and surge to ethereal vocals that float airborne atop organic grooves. The masterstroke is the blend of the electronic and the real, lending the music an overall vitality and humanity. Violins feature throughout and on album opener For The Absent counterpoint the tracks bass and bounce. The gentle guitar strum outro to Growing Up Together/We Go Together is a dreamy velvet landing from the crunch of the preceding beats. The shimmering Sleepless soars and cascades, the layered vocals propelled by snappy drum breaks and electronic pulses. Like the entire album, it chimes with a gentle majesty and is as evocative and replete as anything by M83.
Richly textured and perfectly paced, this music ebbs and flows, swelling and breaking at just the right moments, that is, when you don not expect it. Wrap your ears around this album and sooth your sonic receptors. Take the trip and let it wash all over you. Be… Carried By Waves.
Softly Held Together is available for free download on bandcamp.
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