Leila Abdul-Rauf & Tor LundvallIbis / Quiet Seaside

Tor Lundvall (the recent interview with the artist can be read here) has never stood in the pretentious spotlight of contemporary experimental music. He rather occupied a silent small niche, where he crafted his organic ambient suites echoing the moody twilight landscapes of his paintings full of silent cities, open seas, beautiful fields, whispering woods and surreal figures. Tor developed his own grand world rich with vast and painterly explorations of melancholy, beauty, wanderings, bleakness and joy.

Tor’s collaborations are quite occasional ventures. Almost 15 years passed since poetic autumnal ambient/neoclassical/folk explorations in “Autumn Calls” with Tony Wakeford. Now there is a more hazy offer – a beautiful 7″ gem “Ibis/Quiet Seaside” with kindred spirit Leila Abdul-Rauf, a former member of dreamy neoclassicists Amber Asylum and the current collaborator of Vastum and Hammers of Misfortune. The recording was released on Dais Records.

The material featured on the record is not entirely new. The track “Ibis” has already featured in Leila’s solo album “Cold and Cloud”. It was played by Leila on Tor’s Winter Piano and included vocals in its original form. Here we hear the track in its pure instrumental grandeur showcasing its ethereal essence and reminding the most precious moments of Tor’s “Ice” long-play (especially the mesmerizing purity of “The Blue Church”). However, “Ibis” moods are far more light and breezy, sweeping with piano washes and bursting with springtime lushness.

“Quiet Seaside” is an entirely new affair. Leila’s minimalist acoustic guitar riff cautiously leads the way towards the hazy ambient pulsations. This coherent whole creates a grand manifestation of beauty. Beneath the chords distant yet hauntingly close sounds of blurred horn sections and ethereal vocal echoes can be heard. The track is definitely one of the most beautiful things heard this year – an organic exercise in homely melancholia invoking the vast spaces of ocean and abandoned beaches, lonely piers and reminding intimate walks on sunny evenings of early September. Nothing new for Tor as he was always a master of such moods, however here Leila’s collaboration provides entirely new twists highlighting the essential moments.

In the record Tor and Leila use minimal means to produce the small world of utmost epic maximalist beauty. Both tracks complement each other and celebrate the beautiful, yet complicated and sometimes painful relationship between human and nature.