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LP
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SOD 113LP
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"The trajectory of Alex Cobb's music over the course of the last decade could be viewed as a distillation of tone and atmosphere to arrive at Chantepleure, his most optimistic and sanguine musical statement to date. The album, however, was created at a time of heartache, isolation, and emotional upheaval and acts as a balm of tender tones where abstract guitar lines circle and suspend in a kind of refined elegance. Noise, once a hallmark of Cobb's music, has not been entirely removed, but manifests here in a different form. A delicate dissonance shades the edges of these four tracks, providing textural color and gorgeously offsetting the lush nature of the music. Even in short spans, this approach yields substantial results. At three and a half minutes, 'Disporting with a Shadow' pulls back the curtain just enough to let flecks of natural guitar notes and traces of alluring melody seep into the mix. The album closes with the side-long 'Path of Appearance,' a cathartic composition that is best described as a poem of overtones which, like the rest of the album, is sourced from electric guitar and minimal effects but feels more akin to the sun stretching to fill all corners of a darkened room. A testament to sonic refinement, a way of coping, an exciting step forward for an established artist -- the minimalist Chantepleure is all of these things."
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LP
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SHELTER 040LP
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Marigold and Cable marks an indelible new phase in the trajectory of Alex Cobb's solo recordings and prior missives as Taiga Remains. The album's four compositions are streamlined and focused, finding a balance between studied contours and compositional intuition. Shades of early Stars of the Lid and Kevin Drumm's lambent drones are apt starting points, but Cobb routes them through a live set up without the aid of loops or synthesizers. Marigold and Cable is heavy with meaning and intent, but buoyant and almost tender in execution, allowing filtered harmonies and veiled melodies to waver and sparkle amid clouded atmospherics. On "Rain at the Fete," Cobb wrings his guitar through processing that transforms the instrument into shadowy piano notes and smudged choral works. Later, Maxwell Croy of EN weaves koto lines throughout "Oversong" to stunning effect. The album was recorded during late spring in coastal southern California, in which cool temperatures and overcast skies belie the region's usual warmth and sunshine. Cobb uses this weather pattern to inform Marigold and Cable, an album that is perhaps the signal accomplishment in his lengthy resume. Mastered by James Plotkin, pressed on 180 gram black vinyl, in a limited edition of 500 copies worldwide.
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LP
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SOD 098LP
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"The first full-length Alex Cobb has released since Taiga Remains' well-received Wax Canopy (Digitalis, 2009). Sonically however, the two records could not be more dissimilar, with Passage to Morning recalling more the meditative guitar minimalism of Ribbons of Dust, his prior release for the Root Strata label. Here, glacially moving, eternally receding drones sourced from strings, tape loops and analog synthesizer are the order of the day, expertly arranged into succinct and imminently listenable compositions. Comparisons made of Cobb's previous recordings to Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann's work as Mirror prove particularly apt here, as Passage to Morning trades in the same sort of devotional, faraway sound design for which the pair have been justly praised. 'The Immediate Past' opens the record, with billowing, lulling tones hanging thick in the air like a struck bell frozen in time. Later, 'Bewildered By Its Blue' juxtaposes deep, brooding low-end tones with crackling tape noise and truly hypnotic cycles of analog synthesizer. That this is Cobb's first full-length under his own name is no coincidence, as here he offers us his most intimate recordings to date."
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