Detroit’s Rod Modell, co-founder of dub techno institutions, DeepChord and echospace, teams up with Venetian maestro, Gigi Masin, for an epic collaboration. On Red Hair Girl At The Lighthouse Beach the two of them take it in turns to remix each other. The long-form results make for arguably THE ambient release of the year. 

Rod fills Gigi’s Red Hair Girl At The Boat Stop with the echoed sound of water trickling. String, bowed cello, and reed, oboe-like, synths slowly unfurling, to accompany its stately glide, and gently lapping tide. The tone suggests a blue, the sky just before dawn, or the day’s dying light. There’s certainly a stillness, before a gong leads the way to a busy new age insect-like buzz. There are sneaky peaks of what might be some post-rock / shoegaze guitar, and the song also harbours serrated choir-like harmonies. The rhythm restricted to a distant tribal thump. The effect, spirit-lifting. The texture, granular, grainy, like a forgotten reel of an old home movie. The present, reality, briefly suspended for its duration. 

Gigi gets to grips with Rod’s Summer Morning At Lighthouse Beach. Its sonic sheen, on the surface might seem static, serene, but its shimmer is actually constantly changing, flowing fast, fleet, quickly into the future, mirroring the passage of time. Perhaps this is what produces the piece’s sense of nostalgia, subtly illustrating the fact that we can’t even hold the seconds as they speed past. However, the mood isn’t melancholy, or sad, more fondly remembering. Sparse Fender Rhodes provides an anchor of sorts, preventing the listener from being lost forever. Set adrift on sweet memory bliss. Subliminal human, siren, sighs serenade. Brass blows in there somewhere. In its closing moments a kosmische, Cluster-esque arpeggio raises a ripple. 

While this music plays, the record spins, I am not alone. Instead reflecting on how lucky I’ve been. With all the lives I’ve shared. All the folks I’ve known. So happy that my heart could break. Age may be doing its best to beat and bend me, but I am blessed. What fun we had when we were young, when we thought we were indestructible. 

Gigi Masin & Rod Modell’s Red Hair Girl At The Lighthouse Beach is out now on 13  / Silentes.

A big Thank You to everyone who took the time to wish me a happy birthday.