Ripperton / Contrails / ESP Institute

Ripperton`s Contrails on ESP Institute takes is name from the manmade clouds, the ice crystals that zig-zag our skies. Appropriately it begins with an ascent. A synthesized symphony. A glacial atmosphere, a melancholy glide.

Barely treated piano, touched by echo and reverb, rides a muted electronic rhythm. A building, low-end hum. Like a storm, emotions, gathering. Cold, sharp, metallic drones. As if its sound design were drawn from a knife being dragged across concrete. Or an expanded view, of a plate glass window exploding, in super slow motion (think Bandulu`s Phase Inversion put under a microscope). Morphing into ecclesiastical organ. The beat, a broken heart. A Sci-Fi score, where chimes chatter, haunting the machine. Melody almost lost in sub-bass rumble. Or ringing, shaking, prettily, in vibrato, to the turn of helicopter rotors. Slow Acid twists. A fat snake of a sine wave. Undulating beneath sleepy morning after bleeps and steel pan tones.

Central to Contrails is a snatch of spoken word, that intros the track, Love Is Not Enough. It`s a clip of Harry Dean Stanton’s damaged character, Travis, leaving a recorded message for his estranged son, taken from Wim Wenders` classic, Paris, Texas. Dialogue that expresses a fear of love, a fear that consumes and defines us.

“I love you more than my life.”

Kosmische sequences are kept in check by a metronome`s tick. Creating a tribal hush. The effect like a Chicago House track jacking subliminally from deep within the void of Tangerine Dream`s Zeit. Strings sing like monks in prayer. Brass is caught in looped mechanics. It closes with a wall of beautiful Shoegaze noise. Whispers cutting through a static of infinite detail.