James Ginzburg has spent most of his recent years directing Multiverse Music a British music publisher that played a key role in the Second Renaissance of bass music in Bristol. His latest project is the polar opposite of his usual field: a solo acoustic folk album that goes under the name of Faint Wild Light. Although the self-titled album may offer Ginzburg some solace and sanctuary from the pounding beats that have occupied his daily senses his songs are no less rich for it. Intricate arrangements of smaller sounds work their percussive magic with an enlightened playfulness. Firmament and Speak/Memory offer a cornucopia of sounds calling to mind early Tuung and Found who shared a fondness for hoovering up those everyday sounds along with glimpses of Simon and Garfunkle and an overarching psychedelic fringe.
Squares Becomes Lines has that classic psych sound with evocative acid-trip vocals, marching percussion and building analogue Synths that become increasingly trippy before fading out to a finale of drones.
Ginzburg apparently has a fondness for the short stories of Cortázar and novels of Nabokov that is mirrored in “the narrative structure of the songs; vignettes without beginnings, middles and ends, meditations on golden days misremembered, modified visions of half-imagined pasts.” This adds to the escapism and hallucinatory feel of some songs, particularly on Darker whose heavier synths aptly reflect the song title. A feeling that is beautifully lifted by the finale with its strong sense of freedom…Fallow uses gentle layered harmonies and simple string melodies which bring back the light made brighter still by piano.
Faint Wild Light is definitely a grower and one that you’ll enjoy going back to, also perfect for this time of year! I only hope he continues to explore these psych-folk roots!
Released on Digitalis Recordings 01 September 2013
Order the Black Vinyl edition here