Boris Rogowski - looking into the heart of light, the silence [Ambient]

Boris Rogowski used to bang drums in the local forest as a kid and that desire to make music never left, and although he's pretty much ditched rhythmic assistance these days, he's now busy exploring more ambient, neoclassical and horizontal post-rock pastures.

Details are thin on the ground, but his latest album appears to be inspired by a passage from T.S. Eliot's, The Waste Land, a poetic survey of the failure of love and relationships in the post World War I social landscape. As you can imagine, and perhaps even surmised by the album photograph, this is a not unreasonably sombre piece of music, but don't be deterred, there is often beauty in the shadows.

In fact the album opener starts with the warm, introspective notes of an acoustic guitar, OK, albeit underpinned by a the sounds of quivering strings which create an uneasy ambient undertow. The album's title track is next, and is more of a droning ambient affair, the sounds of string originating pads, spectral vocals and a faint low frequency pulse melting into a satisfying, emotionally straight faced, ambient whole.

Don't get comfortable though, "medicine road, that summer" is a gradually building, restless, low tempo ambient post-rock wake up call, whose electric guitar creeps up on you like one too many beers after work. To ease the hangover along comes, "theme from knotty pines" an almost pastoral slice of microdosed ambient guitar that floats welcomingly through the speakers. The vibe is transmitted to "everything is current" but just as you're getting comfortable some throbbing, distorted machine noise rattles your speakers and even the glistening keys and distant childhood chants can't recover the peace.

Rogowski then dusts off his vocal mic, electric and acoustic guitars, and childhood drum set whilst throwing in some light touch industrial noise and returning to sedate post-rock territory; the perfect gateway to the gentle, optimistic ambient tones of, "when mornings were new" that should guide you safely to wherever you are heading.

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Playlist Companion

Find Rogowski in the Slow Neoclassical Playlist.