Lonely or Alone? Melancholy or Introspective?

Dark and subtle, this CD is great for window gazing on a rainy or wintry day. It sits especially well on a cold day. It’s also perfect for late night listening after everyone else has gone to sleep.

Reminiscent of Brian Eno, Boards of Canada, and at times, Sigur Ros, Distance by Marconi Union is full of restrained, atmospheric cityscapes. It contains elements of electronica, ambient and dub and has what I like to call that Nordic feel-stark, removed, and distant-hence the title. But, the duo consisting of Richard Talbot and Jamie Crossley are actually from the U.K.

Restraint is evident here where all the instrumentation is subtle. Most of the ambient music I listen to has a dominant instrument that sits up front. That’s not the case on Distance where nothing is really in the forefront. The instrumentation feels like it is being gently held back, to great effect.

Most of the tracks have some kind of rhythmic elements like the obvious kick drum on tracks two, three and four lending a pulsing kind of effect as they sit in the sub- or low- frequency range. The creators masterfully minimized the percussion and let it rest underneath the other instruments. It has a Cheshire cat-like quality, there one second and gone the next. I get the feeling they wanted to imply the percussion and let the listener’s imagination fill in the rest.

Close listening, especially with headphones reveals much more than musical instruments. Subtle use of sound effects create a luring, mystical playground. It’s a place I want to step inside and explore like that mysterious path in the woods that beckons.

The music aptly captured titles “Sleepless,” “Buildings and People,” “Suburb27,” and “These European Cities,” as it invoked that feeling of being all alone even when surrounded by a sea of people.

This may all sound kind of gloomy or dreary, but I like the kind of sensations and feelings these compositions can provoke. That’s one of the magical things about music. It has that incomprehensible and mysterious ability to connect us with or disconnect us from our surroundings, our habitual thinking, our inner world. Most of us rarely feel the same way we felt the day before, even the moment before. We don’t always feel peaceful and harmonious, or edgy and angular, or uplifted and light. Music is a powerful mirror for those environments inside us and this CD, one of my favorites, allows me to slip away quietly or sit contently with the world around me.