album review: Revelationes

On a Sunday night, having done battle with a stomach bug the night before, my body was still unsure of how to return to normalcy. Sitting was no good. I found it better to walk around, pacing my girlfriend's kitchen as she chopped vegetables. Going in to work that day, even on a weekend, had already done a lot for returning me to routine. Crunchy foods were another thing...

 
 
When my legs had had enough and I was resigned to lying down, I thought quickly that some music could abet my restlessness. In comes Spotify, that technological triumph over leaving any space silent. I thought of the lonely winter weekends I spent last year, reading to the relaxed noises of Tape. A band I'd discovered through webcomic artist Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content. Rideau had been recommended on his website, and I'll never forget the time "A Spire" accompanied my first moments of being in Toronto. When I branched out to other albums of theirs, I found something quite the opposite of what I'd expected. Not in haphazard use of various instruments, alternately spooky and soothing (sometimes in the same track) or tiny ear-grabbing riffs, but in structure. While all of Rideau consists of five tracks, Luminarium and Millieu seem to be sketchboards of ideas in comparison. A composition barely gets on its feet before dropping out. Sometimes less is more, and you are left to carry on the moments of the song into the rest of your day, and on occasion Tape is wonderful inspiring just such listening practices. What Revelationes does is find the middle-ground between these two methods. Tracks are long enough that their ideas have an opportunity to grow and breathe, but none have the weighty feel attributed to length. This makes it at once accessible while still thouroughly exciting and enchanting with each listen.

The details present on Revelationes are nothing new to a Tape album. Where on Rideau tiny elements would build and swell, playing out an epic saga on each track, here they seem to be just around the corner, or on the edge of our memory, melodical residue supplementing the ever-evolving pieces still being presented to us. On earlier albums, there was a sometimes naive, underskilled hand adding tiny inconsistencies and random bursts of abstract noise here and there. Such highlights are still quite present, only now they have a humble, wisended hand guiding their rebellious outbursts. On "Companions", the rising, pulsating organ which drives forward at 1:00 in is met with a smile when it hushes itself exactly on cue twenty seconds later. As for the other alien sounds swirling and peeking from the shadows of the album? Whether on the horrorific "Byhalia", the gentle "In Valleys", or the inviting "Dust and Light", there is a sense of some greater energy at play. Shining through the cracks in what might seem like a simple repetition of parts to remind us of the many tiny wonders, both frightening and enlightening in every day.