Review Summary: Clicky, sparse and ambient, this record is a wonderful piece of modern electronica.
Reviewing an instrumental record is always tricky – there’s no emotive lyrics to guide one through the experience, no relatable subject matters, nothing to really make one think.
The success of such records can usually only be determined by how easily they can rise above just being background noise (particularly an issue in more chilled and sparse pieces).
It is with this in mind that makes ‘Beautiful Broken’ such an odd listening experience.
Nothing about this mix of glitchy percussion, damp bass synths, gently tapped xylophones, mellow woodwinds and breathy strings should stand out and grab the ear – akin to any ‘chillout’ compilation, this album should arguably be played to drift away to sleep to, or to enjoy a hot, bubbly bath with, or (somewhat more overbearingly) as incidental music during tense scenes of
House.
But I digress – these 9 tracks offer an extremely gratifying listen for those who choose to shut out the world and be engulfed by them.
There’s something about putting the world ‘beautiful’ in the title of an artist’s work that really tends to rub this reviewer up the wrong way, particularly with the aforementioned lack of lyrical context – but much like going into ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ with an inherent desire to lay into it, the overwhelming conclusion is that ‘OK, maybe they have a point’.
Despite the obvious classical influence on this record, and indeed the classical feel of some of the end results, Digitonal will, more often than not, eschew the unnecessarily complex in favour of taking simple melodic patterns and expanding on them, ensuring every idea is wonderfully realised. The track ‘Beltane’ is a prime example of this – the initial pattern of 8 notes on a percussive, tight synth drenched in reverb plays on a loop for all of the 4’33 runtime, with no variation – but it grows in stature, surrounded by simple harmonies until the end result is so full and rich, almost cacophonous, but how gentle the track is almost forbids one from using that descriptor.
‘It Doesn’t Matter’ takes a slightly different path – while melodically the track follows a rigid repetitive pattern, it is more content to introduce each instrument and construct different combinations rather than perpetually build – as a result the experience is more of a slow burner, but no less satisfying for it.
‘We Three’ is a wonderfully disarming listen, the glitchy, bleak piano patterns sound convincingly malfunctioning, creating moments of unexpected quiet and jumping back in – always demanding the listener’s attention rather than letting the huge, melancholic strings in the second half dominate the track, and here is perhaps the best example of why the record succeeds – while every part of this record is performed to perfection, and it serves a more mainstream demographic with it’s simplicity over brazen intelligence, there is always enough to keep one guessing, and is not prepared to sit back on talent alone.
There are
ideas here, and hard work, creating some simply beautiful music.
Conversely, the mid-point of this album is possibly the weakest track on offer here – while ‘Anaethmatics’ isn’t a
bad piece, it does seem a little hollow in comparison to the remainder of the record – happily settling into Jakatta-esque pleasantry rather than experimenting further. Tracks such as ‘Luna’ and ‘Polestar’ continue on a similarly minimalist trajectory, but where the former track suffered and these succeed is that the sparse rhythms and orchestral flourishes are enough to remain engaging throughout and take a commanding lead rather than fade into obscurity.
‘Beautiful Broken’ is a wonderful listen. Those who find the time to shut off and let the record do the work will be rewarded.
