“A Diary of Occurrences draws out its inspiration from the slow and evasive rhythms which fed the ambient background of I Remain”
1 1863 6:40 2 The View from the Summerhouse 4:09 3 Marianne, Please Get Help 3:58 4 The Postern Gate 2:23 5 Sunex Amures 4:50 6 A Diary of Occurrences 3:30 7 We Walked with Marie Lairre 4:54 A-Frame Media| A FRAME 017 (EP/CD-R 30:24) (V.F.)
(Melodic ambient EM)
When we read the author's personal notes which accompany A DIARY OF OCCURENCES, one understands that The Glimmer Room wants to make counterweight for the atmosphere of bleakness which surrounded the wonderful I Remain by presenting 7 tracks which at first sight want to be lighter, more livened. And it's, to my big delight, a missed shot! Even if Andy Codon claims the opposite, the music here draws out its inspiration from the slow and evasive rhythms which fed the ambient background of I Remain. The melodies, the slow rhythms and the moods of profound melancholy that roam like harmonious nomads on this album give me constantly the taste to wallow my ears in this wonderful ambient and oneiric ode that is I Remain. In fact, if we stick all 7 tracks tips to ends that furnish this EP from The Glimmer Room, we have the vague impression to hear nothing less than a section lost of this absolute masterpiece of harmonic ambient music.
And it's with lachrymose synth waves which moan over an ardent musical brook and its prismic reflections that 1863 opens. A pleasant melody tinted of a very beautiful romantic imprint emerges from it. Its glass arpeggios sparkle in a harmonious ballet, comforting the incisive tears of a synth filled with silvery melancholy. This soft electronic ballad is the front door of very beautiful and sensitive one EP which loosens the imprint of a relative sadness surrounding I Remain without denying it for as much. And the stamp of gloom so dear to Andy Codon floats as a spectre fed by nostalgic gulps with tears of synth which deeply move the soul, and this even with a more ballad approach. The View from the Summerhouse is a perfect example with its delicate hesitating chords which roam in a thick cloud of breezes to the floating divergent harmonies and tears of familiar spirits dropped in the hidden recesses of our will to forget. A sigh of melancholy draws its wintry weather on a window by a rainy day and Marianne, Please Get Help makes its entrance like a wave of sadness which shakes our nostalgia. The piano notes are ringing of a harmonious desire on a bed of synth layers to outlines eroded by sadness and of which the echoing furrows join the frosted sighs which isolate us in our reality. It's very beautiful and very delicate, quite as the very neurasthenic universe of Andy Codon who puts us full ears with The Postern Gate and its uncertain arpeggios which ring with brightness on undulating synth waves to iridescent tones. The crescendo of emotionalism which transports this track is easily comparable to the slow dying final of I Remain of which we also find its ashes and we recognize the disturbing airs on the very solitary We Walked with Marie Lairre. Extricating itself from the ochred clouds, Sunex Amures presents its melodious approach with delicate arpeggios which skip in tandem in an intense fog to silvery sea sprays. And the melody is evasive. Crawling on its cloud and its elegiac breezes, it sparkles as a concert of fireflies in a melancholic sky. The title-track is a beautiful astral ballad with its crystalline arpeggios which sparkle with uncertainty in suave paradisiacal breezes. The echo of their so crystal-clear tones waltzes with the eddies of astral winds which take the breaths of this delicate contemplative melody far from the muffled pulsations of a discreet line of bass. This is another strong track, like the 6 others moreover which adorn our ears of this sole approach of melancholic poetry, which is so unique to Andy Codon's signature who, nevertheless what he can say basks in ashes of I Remain. And The Glimmer Room should not be ashamed by that. All the contrary!
Sylvain Lupari (January 21th, 2013) *****
Available at The Glimmer Room Bandcamp