Lightning Dust
Lightning Dust
Score:72
Reviewer: Wireless Bollinger
Label: Jagjaguwar (USA)
Reviewed: Sep 1st '07, Released:2007
Lightning Dust overcomes the common trappings of minimalism; succeeding with an album that is concise and delicately quirky from the sparse ‘Listened On’ with its bleak sporadic guitar and plummy organ, to the smooth piano ballad ‘Days Go By’ book-ending a richly textured and diverse album. It is this variety that separates Lightning Dust from the monotony that inflicts many minimalist releases, as the songs sway from incredibly rich soundscapes to the simplicity of single instrument and voice.
Amber Webber is the main vocalist in Lightning Dust and her voice is an extraordinary instrument. Singing in a moderately low register for a female singer, she employs a beautifully restrained vibrato. This is the kind of voice that shapes itself around songs, around instruments.. She has just been gifted with an incredibly malleable voice; the kind of voice that can be dictated to by the style of music employed and still hold its own.
‘Jump In’ is the album’s best song – the prominent piano line weirdly reminiscent of Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’. But here it’s as if ‘Delilah’ has been rewritten as a morose duet of togetherness until death. As one of the few instances where Joshua Wells is granted a lead vocal, there is almost a sinister sexuality in the song; Webber and Wells sounding like a duo as dynamically potent and sexually charged as Jennifer Charles and Mike Patton on Dan the Automator’s Nathaniel Merriweather presents… Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By.
It’s amazing that Webber and Wells can move so far away from their Black Mountain heritage on this record. The duo have spilt a wealth of influences all over this album, ‘Days Go By’ sounding like Nick Drake in a positive, albeit languid, mood; ‘Breathe’ is an organ epic; and ‘Take Me Back’ touches Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The variation on this record is a strength, able to cover different styles while maintaining the all-important album flow – even a song like ‘Wind Me Up’ (an upbeat, eccentric, pop number) doesn’t feel at all out of place. Overall, it’s a sustaining and relevant debut and a fascinating side project.
