Alejandro Cohen is a core member of L.A.’s Dublab, a non-profit music / art hub / institution that’s been serving not only the local but also the global community for two and a half decades. Never selling out and amazingly still funded primarily through listener support. Cohen has also been creating and releasing music for over ten years. Initially as part of the trio, Languis, and then as one of the Pharaohs, alongside Casey Butler, Samuel Cooper, and Diego Herrera / Suzanne Kraft. Back toward the end of 2010s the band scored underground hits on labels like ESP Institute and 100% Silk, with their blend of Balearic, cosmic, and punk funk. More recently Cohen put together a couple of collaborative albums as Cafe Ale, but Chamber Of Tears his debut solo set.

Following a cleansing intro of Tibetan bowls, percussion, and wind chimes, the remaining twelve tracks on the album are all short and sweet acoustic guitar-based compositions. Cohen’s playful strumming and picking fashioning folky filigree and circular cycling patterns – a la classical minimalism. The strings mic’d so closely that, sometimes, you can hear his fingers slide up and down them. This delicate fretwork, however, is only the foundation, and each number adds its own colours and subtle variation. The synths on In Safe Gardens, for example, summon Another Green World-era Eno, while the tune’s title and field-recorded birds must surely be a nod to Virginia Astley. The sonics of The Seven Dolphins are suitably submerged, generating a sense of a serene deep, as aching electric arcs mimic the sea mammals it’s named after. Penguin is a piece of introspective post-rock, recalling the work of Davids Pajo and Grubbs. Its melody almost an Elizabethan madrigal. On Otherwise, Cohen shares / sings a fragile, intimate song. In contrast, the percussive Del Mar sounds like Novos Baianos’ joyful post-Tropicalia, and Heart-Shaped Rock hangs on a gentle, sophisticated jazzy swing. Vibraphone ripples raising a Giorgio Tuma-esque tranquility. A Very Quiet Place twins tumbling Americana with beautiful bowed cello. The spritely Deep Blue Dream is the long-player at its poppiest, perkiest, closing the album on a positive, optimistic note. 

Alejandro Cohen’s Chamber Of Tears can be ordered directly from Geographic North.

A big thank you to Test Pressing’s Paul Byrne / Apiento for the tip.