Impermanence by Le Morte d'Abby

The new Le Morte d'Abby record 'Impermanence' offers an entirely different approach to 2022's 'I Am'. This time, the acid beats and infectious melodies are traded in for something more soothing. A vast astral array of thought and contemplative song structures that compound into a delightful journey through Floridian star-fields.

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INTERVIEW
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George Ernst (Triplicate Records): How did the creative process for 'Impermanence' differ from 'I Am' ?

Abigail Lentz aka Le Morte d'Abby: 'Impermanence' is slow, cinematic ambient while 'I Am' is EDMish. Other than the emotion behind each track, the process was the same.

GE: What's your favourite place in the whole world?

AL: Hard to name just one place. Moved around a lot when I was a kid and sort of developed an inability to attach myself to any one place. I like cold, overcast, and dreary. The more rain and snow, the better. It always puts me in better moods than sunny days. I'm sort of broken like that. Places like Seattle and London. And maybe anywhere north of the Arctic Circle.

GE: Is there any significance to the 8:40 run-time of four out of seven of the tracks here?

AL: Not really. I build my tracks, mostly, on top of chord progressions. It's how I start. Helps me to quickly find a mood for the track. Because of that, I know before I start roughly how long the track will be. Not really planned.

GE: What word do you constantly have trouble spelling? Impermanence is a big one for me, or rather it was. Having done this write-up I think I've finally sealed the correct spelling into my head.

AL: Supercilious. I always want to spell it with an s. Unfortunately, with spell check on everything today, I am probably still mispelling it and not knowing.

GE: What is your favourite Cetacean?

AL: Dolphins, for their self-awareness. And the fact that they continue to interact socially with human beings. Sadly, even to their own detriment. Not sure what they see in Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

GE: What's an 'Eye Wall'?

AL: I was working on this release when Hurricane Ian rolled over top of where I was living. It took about 4 hours for the eye to move (from south to north) past us to the west after it slowed to 5 mph. My family and I were in an area that had a mandatory evacuation notice, but we didn't leave. For a little over 2 hours of that 4, we were near the wall of the hurricane's eye with 115 mph sustained winds and gusts up to 140+ mph. For that entire time there was an eerie, low frequency roar in what sounded like the distance. And the earth rumbled in sync with that roar. It was something out of a Roland Emmerich film. Always waiting for a massive wave to roll in.

The predicted surge for the coastline was 12 to 18 feet. It came in at 12 feet in the area I was and the southern part of the city was flooded. Had it hit 18 feet, the house where I was, and a huge swath of the city, would have been 3 to 6 feet under water.

It was an experience I never want to go through again. And I tried to recreate some of the sounds of all that with the synths I have. To bring through what I heard and felt.

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REVIEW
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Fans of the recent 'I Am' LP will recall blistering beats, mesmerising synthwork, and an overall wide-eyed experimental take on Le Morte d'Abby's keen electro-pop sensibilities. Fans of 'I Am' will therefore in all likelihood soon become fans of the similarly ecstatic 'Impermanence', but for a very different reason. The beats are not the focus here; there are none to speak of. No, this time it's the space between the drums that's afforded the spotlight, showcasing an altogether different, yet equally fascinating side of the Florida-based producer.

Immediately, the epic space-bound opener of 'Cetacea Mythorum' takes the listener on an astral odyssey through the exosphere above Cape Canaveral, whether you want to head-cannon it that it's from the perspective of an astronaut orca is your decision but your mileage may vary.. There's no mmm-tiss-mmm-tisss bada-bada-DOOF of a house beat or acid percussion to hold your hand here, just the majesty of the endless star-field, populated as it is with melodies vast and colourful. Perfectly the nature of your journey, and the story the producer wishes to tell is laid out here, expansive and unknowable, and intriguing throughout.

The following 'Not Because They are Easy' borrows both its title and opening sample from JFK's iconic 1962 address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort. It's a nice hopeful callback to a more hopeful and magical time, complete with a warbling synth-line soaked in half a century of nostalgia. Simultaneously calming and unnerving from the frequent interventions of radio-static, this massive 8 minute and 40 seconds long composition (get used to that number!) showcases a glut of mind-altering skills present in Le Morte d'Abby's compositional arsenal. Truly beautiful melodies elevate the piece beyond your typical space-ambient flavour-producing into a truly special, meditative song.

The Longest track on the record (though not by much), 'The Quiet Before' brings to mind at first, half-heard dances in some grand hotel ballroom dream sequence, fuzzy and bubbly and recorded through several floors of separation, though as it grows, and the pads and eventual strumming of strings coalesce like a tender Twin Peaks diner scene score, it reaches levels of sweetness one hesitates to attempt to describe. Often times the music of Le Morte d'Abby can have the effect of making the listener feel as though they've stumbled onto some lofty heavenly soundtrack that shouldn't be accessible to mortals, this piece exemplifies that sentiment perfectly.

'The Eye Wall' is the shortest track on the record (though not by much). It's a more understated composition than the grandiosity of the last three, quietly burning away in the background like the tightly constructed and necessary mid-point palette-cleanser it is. It feels like the vital heart of the journey, and segways neatly into the slick and punchy 'Streetlights Reflected'. Though never approaching the danceable sheen of the previous record's more boppable numbers (nor does it attempt to, that's not the goal here), the bassy stabs nonetheless recall the punchyness of classic Le Morte d'Abby, all the while incorporating the expansive swooshes of the 'Impermanence' sound.

You already know from the title of the penultimate 'And the Earth was Filled with Violence' that you're in for a darker excursion, and you're right! Though it never strays into nihilistic melancholy as lengthy moody ambient pieces like this can. It's more of an acceptance of fate, with token glimmers of hope, or at the very least, understanding. The second half, as many of these pieces do, evolves into a slow, yet shimmering diamond of light, illuminating the darkest reaches of the cosmos, a perfect revelation in an entirely cosmic journey.

Then the foreboding reverb-soaked gloom of closer 'Ascendance Of The False Prophet' comes into view, and you start to nervously reach for the earthen communication device. It's an excellent bait and switch. The producer spends six glorious tracks meticulously building up the mythos of space-travel, through waves of fascination and hopefulness, and retro-futurist fondness few other areas of musical exploration can conjure, only to communicate to the listener, in aural terms the harsh scientific reality of the nature of the universe. Or maybe it's just a very good closing track on a very good album.

George Ernst
Triplicate Records

Synth-centric, heavily percussed Melodic Techno/EDM. And Cinematic Ambient.

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