Mobius Fuse
SedimentalAll Music Guide
← backTexas-based composer Olivia Block followed up her gorgeous debut recording, Pure Gaze, with an equally compelling release, travelling further down a similar path but finding several new, unexplored byways. Once again
her field recordings form the basic matrix of her work, a framework on which to pin surprising instrumental structures. Here, the first and longest piece begins with the sound of distant fireworks approaching and receding, eventually exploding right above the listener. As on the prior album, Block appears drawn to long, lush organ-like chords, and they emerge suddenly and ravishingly midway through the composition. It fades in and out of near silence (complete with crickets) before the fireworks, sonically shrunken to the size of popcorn, reappear en masse, or is it the pelting of hail or perhaps overlaid cracklings of shattering ice? Whatever the source, the effect is magical and somewhat alien, the ambient sounds one might expect to hear on a moon of Saturn and slowly rumble off into the distance. The short closing piece is something else entirely. Though the familiar fireworks still lurk in the background, center stage is taken by a wind quintet performing a hymn-like song as though playing to a small crowd at the park gazebo. Beguiling, unpredictable, and unusually lovely, Mobius Fuse comes highly recommended.
– Brian Olewnic , All Music Guide