Album Review :: Dragon Turtle - Distances

Dragon Turtle

Distances

August 12 2014 (Oscillating Color)

9.5/10

Words: Linn Branson

'Distances' is apparently the second full-length and fifth release from Dragon Turtle, which is surprising given how good it is (and subsequently, the duo too), as this is the first time this reviewer has come across them, by sound or by name; most certainly a loss if the rest of their output is of a similar quality.

Dragon Turtle is a collaboration between Tom Asselin (ex- Strand of Oaks, Lewis & Clarke) and Brian Lightbody, who have been working together for several years travelling between Brooklyn, New York (where Brian lives) and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania (Tom's habitat) to create lush sonic soundscapes through reverberating guitars and understated haunting vocals.

The nine tracks on the album all shine with poetic license and melodies that evoke wide-open panoramic landscapes. Much of it is cinematic in style - in particular, 'Summer Drive' and 'Beard', which both deserve to be worked into a motion picture somewhere - and presents the feel of a topographic music book, spilling out with aquatic landscapes, deserted American towns where dry, ochre coloured dust flies up as a solitary vehicle passes through, where shorelines meet blue vistas, and floating ethereal vocals hover around ambient guitars, reverberated arrangements and a meeting of the organic - cello, harp, piano - with the synthetic likes of drum machine and synthesiser.

Much of the record was recorded at The Pinehurst, a former holiday resort in The Poconos that had fallen into neglect and whose abandoned recreation hall on the property Tom turned into a recording studio. Crates of wood were stacked to contain the sound, and an “igloo” was forged with blankets and tarps to continue recording through winter in the unheated space.

As with many of the album's oceanic references, the epic 7.29 minutes of 'Beard' - inspired by Walt Whitman and Lightbody seeking to capture some of what Whitman called “the glorious jam”, the joy and magic he found in busy city life - tells us that "I sail waters/in a maze of light/lost in my beard/in tangled sounds of waves," as it lays swathe after swathe of ambient delectation upon the ears. The Sigur Rós-styled 'Odaiba', another sea paean, in which the sound of drums imitate waves crashing the hulls of a ship, takes six minutes of harp, cello and bass and lap steel guitar to play under a welter of ghostlike voices in choral hypnotics: "in a break/drifting out/push and pulling/the oceans apart." The song ends with waves “pushing you away and drawing me in”, a sentiment of how natural forces beyond our control push us into different fates.

Undoubted album highlight (though this may be somewhat arguable, given the standard throughout) is 'Summer Drive'. Aptly described as "a Nebraska-era Springsteen guitar meeting a baroque pop version of The Jesus and Mary Chain", it is a powering track that washes over you in swathes; building and building on layers of instrumention until it reaches a glorious crescendo around the three minute mark. It is a simply stunning piece and one that is far better aurally experienced in person to appreciate it to its best, than reading words - as here - written from another's perspective.

'Windows', spacelike and ambient, is one of two, along with closer 'Starliner', short instrumental tracks; this one composed for Tom's mother as she was in hospice towards the end of her life.

The quasi-jazz vibe on 'Sunset on the Empire', a track which includes contributions from former Man Man and current Modest Mouse member Russell Higbee, and Jay Hudak of An Albatross on bass, features Darius Mehundrew on vocal, sounding like some deep-toned being from on-high. This is another on which Mary Lattimore’s (Kurt Vile, Thurston Moore) harp and the cello of Andrew Xue pluck at the heartstrings as much as at the instruments themselves by the players' fingers.

'Distances' is a work of beauty, depth and perspective; one to savour late at night, or on the cold moaning days of winter driving through desolate wastes, or on solitary starlit nights by a sea-lapping shore, lost in contemplatory thought. And as such must stand high as being one of the most superlative albums of the year.