Lambent Material is the debut album by Eluvium, the moniker for composer Matthew Robert Cooper’s sonic experiments and explorations. First released in May of 2003, Lambent Material was immediately recognized as much for its artful simplicity as it was for its deceptive complexity – an album of melodic austerity, alien transmissions, and titanic waves of cathartic noise.

Previously only available on vinyl as part of Eluvium’s Life Through Bombardment Vol. 1 box set (a 7xLP collection released in 2008 that has been sold out for well over a decade), Lambent Material – Anniversary Edition finally gets its first standalone vinyl release.

It is packaged in a full-colour jacket and heavyweight inner sleeve with fully restored original artwork.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Unfinished (4:38)
2. Under The Water It Glowed (5:10)
3. There Wasn’t Anything (4:41)
4. Zerthis Was A Shivering Human Image (15:35)
5. I Am So Much More Me That You Are Perfectly You (5:50)

The new studio album by iconic experimental ambient artist, Eluvium.

­The first Eluvium album to feature a full live orchestra.

(Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality is the new album by Eluvium – the renowned moniker of prolific modern composer, Matthew Robert Cooper. Taking initial inspirations from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Richard Brautigan’s All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, (Whirring Marvels) inherently deals both with humankind’s need for meaning, and the emergence of algorithms reflecting the feedback loops of humankind’s interactions with machines themselves. This complicated relationship that we have with technology, automations, and algorithms – and the influence they in turn have on shaping our image of the world – is the mechanized heart and soul of an album that almost instantly establishes itself as a peak in Eluvium’s inimitable catalog.

During the writing process for (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality, Cooper began experiencing shoulder and arm pain that rendered his left arm increasingly debilitated. This inspired new compositional methods that blended varying degrees of electronic automations with traditional songwriting. Lyrical themes were built using algorithms to cull content from a notebook filled with years of scribbled thoughts, poems, considerations, conspiracies, scientific notions, and notes on the spirit of existence. Employing musicians from all around the world – including members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), Golden Retriever, and the entire Budapest Scoring Orchestra – much of the music was conducted and recorded remotely via teleconference during the global COVID lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. This approach to composing served as an unintended but serendipitous challenge for an album inspired by the complicated convenience of technology.

(Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality blends an ornate combination of ingredients to construct a narrative of our dynamic invention; technological advancement; loneliness and isolationism; and unchecked idealism in a world of never-ending growth. The resulting hope that somehow emerges is itself a marvel of innovation and inspiration.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Matthew Robert Cooper produces some of the most beautiful modern-classical music around today, from the brittle solo piano of 'Pianoworks' to the more grand, expansive outings like 'Copia' or this, his most orchestrated outing yet. 'Whirring Marvels...' is playful in parts, but deeply heartfelt throughout. Rich and fun, just how I like my albums.

TRACK LISTING

1. Escapement (1:37)
2. Swift Automatons (2:37)
3. Vibration Consensus Reality (for Spectral Multiband Resonator) (8:01)
4. Scatterbrains (3:34)
5. Phantasia Telephonics (5:55)
6. The Violet Light (2:30)
7. Void Manifest (4:11)
8. Clockwork Fables (2:16)
9. Mass Lossless Interbeing (3:43)
10. A Floating World Of Demons (3:04)
11. Endless Flower (3:46)

At the top of 2020 a year that began like any other but ended like none other Matthew Robert Cooper’s Eluvium moniker unveiled a new ambient album series built around generative music and long-form loops. Intended as a minor, limited-edition stop-gap between proper albums, Virga I unexpectedly became a balm for many in a year of overwhelming anxiety and uncertainty. One year later, Eluvium follows with Virga II, an album made to help translate that flood of emotions as something other than anxiety and uncertainty. From the opening oceanic darkness of the aptly-named “Hallucination I” – a purposefully stoic, immovable piece designed to engage the listener’s subconscious in developing melodies through illusory repetition – through to the gaseous drift of the title track, Virga II rebuilds itself to reflect our ever-changing time and space. From buzz to bliss, it is a wondrous journey of reflection and restoration.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Hallucination I (13:25)
2. Scarlet Hunter (8:29)
Side 2
1. Touch Returned (9:57)
2. Virga II (11:02)