HAMMOCK

On their first album "Kenotic" the post rock duo Hammock focuses on a more ambient style of approach. This is the music of empty city streets on cloudy evenings or of a dim, lonely room with closed curtains. The tracks tend to keep on the peripheral areas of my auditive attention with their melancholic, grey guitar layered tensions. Sometimes a highlighted motif or idea emerges to catch me from falling asleep (which is by the way not always a bad sign to happen while listening to music), like on the wonderful song "Wish". A nice album for "evening dreaming" (a word invented right now, as opposed to daydreaming). Not the most memorable one out there but a pleasant listen nevertheless.

One can always analyze an album down to its contents, track by track and sound after sound. Something I've recently realized however is that music, and especially this kind of ambient influenced music may often be better understood and described through the musical colours and landscapes it creates in the mind absorbing it. Moods and moments. One of the latter happened some nights ago when I was listening this album. While "Passing Away" was playing, I happened to gaze out of my window. The blue hour was just at its fullest and the crescent moon shone its cold light down on me. I felt like a special connection, between myself, the early night sky and the song. And that is what Hammock's "Raising Your Voice... Trying to Stop an Echo" in my opinion is all about. Those little stunning moments of life, expressed musically through those layers of post-rockish ambient that Hammock have specialized in. Beautiful, flowing, painting the palette of all kinds of blue emotions that we are all familiar with, more or less. That kind of stuff that makes the little details lose themselves in the background, drawing a bigger picture.

Hammock's latest release is a massive double cd full of layered guitar harmonies, sweet&slow arpeggios and calm drumbeats. Almost two hours in length, it is hard to say anything fully comprehensive about Departure Songs. I still have very mixed feelings on the album, even after giving it time to grow and listening it through many times in multiple ways. It seems to be loosely themed (how much can you build a semantic theme in a mostly instrumental album, anyway?) around the last moments of life and the various ways in which death can take place. Some moments are breathtaking, like the awesome buildup in Ten Thousand Years Won't Save Your Life and the beautifully moving Frailty (For the Dearly Departed). Other times, especially on the second disc, I just completely lose attention as there's not much new or even interesting going on. Don't get me wrong, this is a fine effort, I just find it too long for it's genre and too bland in terms of variance for my taste. While not really groundbreaking structurally or melodically, Hammock succeeds in creating many very interesting soundscapes that leave the listener in a sense of wonder, a thing often found through their music. Check it out and decide for yourself, that's my advice.

On Stranded Under Endless Sky the post rock-ambient unit Hammock presents a nice blend of sounds, layers and melancholia. Tracks flow beautifully from start to finish, with just enough variation added to keep them thoroughly interesting. Not being really a fan of the genre and its nearest relatives, this album was a surprisingly good find. The title track sets the mood for some fine blue ambience. I imagine a man walking alone in soft rain, wondering his life. Then follows Birds Flying In Sequence, my favourite track here, which uses some drum loops in the background of a guitar groove to create again a layer of deep emotions. The third track, good but nothing particularly interesting, serves as a bridge to An Empty Field, which is just plain nine minutes of epicness. Lots of echoes and ambience, topped by some beautiful guitar playing. After listening to this album I feel a sense of wonder and focus, something not very often found through music. For those who like instrumental and calm music Hammock is definitely something to check out.

On this EP Hammock moves to an even more post rock-oriented style than on their previous releases. They also bring a couple of guest vocalists to add to the mix. The songs are centered around soft and clear guitar themes, which while comfortable are not really strong enough to hold everything together. All in all I find pieces of that a sense of uninterest and easy solutions in terms of songwriting that often haunt many artists striving to create something more widely appreciated. The overall sonical world doesn't change that much during the disc's 22-minute length. Even the vocals are a bit too plain, and despite some good lyrics there is little of interest in them. I can't help but see this record as a "bonus track" sort of thing, as Hammock can and have done better. Only the ending dissonance/crescendo in Parker's Chapel shows that the band might be seeking to move to another, a more exciting direction.

If there's such thing as a wonderful introduction to post-rock, where one is trying to get say a friend or someone into the genre, or heck, you yourself haven't listened to post-rock yet... Go no further than the really chill band Hammock.

Drawing from the atmospherics of more ambient musicians such as The American Dollar and Sigur Ros at their most glacial, as well as the emotional and moody song structures of bands like Mono, Hammock is one of those post-rock bands that takes the best of the genre and molds it into something all their own.

Now, while there's nothing too intensely exciting about this record, it's a great starting point for someone just getting into the genre. It's accessible, yet contains that brilliant post-rock atmosphere that really makes fans of the genre with it's heartstring plucking goodness. The songs are short and while the album as a whole is fairly long, it's not like you're taking in 20+ minute GY!BE songs.

In short, this is really where beginners of post-rock should go, not too intense and inaccessible, but still beautiful and worth listening to.

4 star record.

It also needs to be mentioned that people who are fans of the genre already will undoubtedly enjoy this record and the band's other work.

This album contains a lot of very pleasant atmospheric instrumental music--somewhere between the Ambient Music of HAROLD BUDD, BRIAN ENO, and DANIEL LANOIS and the instrumental shoegaze of ROBIN GUTHRIE (formerly of Cocteau Twins). Unfortunately, neither the individual songs nor the album as a whole contain enough variety, variance, or high points (even the usual build-build-crescendo-fade-[repeat] format typical to Post Rock/Math Rock is often nearly absent). Not until the fourth song, "Breathturn" (7/10) is there anything relatively fresh or interest piquing. The next, "In the Nothing of the Night," (7/10) feels like nine minutes of a slow candlelight processional through a graveyard. I think I kind of like it--or, at least, I would like this music to accompany me on a processional through a graveyard. "Andalusia" (7/10) belongs on 1983's "Apollo," "The Whole Catastrophe" (7/10) on ULVER's "Shadows of the Sun." With "The World We Knew as Children" (9/10) we finally hit some interesting--albeit familiar (as all Post/Math Rock becomes 'familiar' sounding)--combination of sounds and composition. Perseverance through the shoegaze start of "Dust in the Devil's Snow" (9/10) proves rewarding as some very nice melodies and emotions are conveyed by the band as a whole--though the sudden cut out and minute-long synth wash fadeout is a bit disappointing. "How Can I Make You Remember Me?" (8/10) could have been on "Plateaux of Mirror" or a 1990s JONN SERRIE album, while "You Lost the Starlight in Your Eyes" (7/10) has the ENO-DANIEL LANOIS--even with the cheesy Phil Collins-like vocals. "Something Other Than Remaining" (7/10) sounds so close to an early SIGUR RòS song that it could have been from "Ágætis Byrjun" or "( )". Unfortunately, it doesn't really go anywhere or say/do anything new.

A very pleasant, laid back, lush/aurally-rich atmospheric listening experience--one that brings the listener in enough to evoke many visuals and other nostalgic or fanciful sensuals. Well recorded and produced, composed and performed by a nicely integrated band. 3.5 stars marked down for the fact that it won't hit the spot for every one at every moment.