Wiki
-
Release Date
24 April 2011
-
Length
8 tracks
"Named for a piece in Galway Kinnell's Book of Nightmares, Some Ember's debut LP Hotel of Lost Light is the culmination of a lifetime's experience for Dylan Travis; the man behind the moniker, he is a longtime musician and most recently a member in good standing of the Bay Area music community. Some Ember began dramatically. Laid up for weeks after a car accident and loaded up with a little compensation money, Travis "blew it all on synthesizers and production software". In the past he and various bands he played with relied on studio engineers, but he was determined to learn and use that process for himself. Though Travis describes making Hotel of Lost Light as a very intuitive process, refracting his experience with post-punk and noise pop through a more minimalist, no-wave sensibility, recording and producing it eventually drew on every technique and technology that getting hit by a car had gained for him. Appropriately enough, this is a very personal album for him; seeking catharsis in his experience of music, Travis brings his vocals to the fore, underscoring a vividly offered shared experience in their naked emotion and the darkly evocative imagery of the album. His prowess as a producer only improves the experience as subtle nuance emerges in how instruments and vocals set distinct paces or the sound of unconventional warps and effects - whether vocal distortion or sega-synths - as they come into focus." -Dwight Pavlovic
"I keep thinking about this lonely guy in a lake, like a 19th century convict rowing through fog, making his great escape from an island prison and sinking halfway to shore. What happens to that guy? What if he had a Moog to play on the way down?" -The FADER
"…a dark, lush landscape of brooding, swirling post punk cold wave minimalism, all pulsing muted synths, spare percussion, shimmery atmospheres, thick, crumbling industrial swells, hushed melancholic melodies, all blurred into a murky, washed out dirge pop dreamscape, sounding a bit like a more lysergic Talk Talk, driven by Travis' vocals which at times sound like Danzig covering Scott Walker, and at others like some impossible hybrid of Antony and Dave Gahan, soaring and passionate, emotive and dramatic, we really weren't prepared to dig this as much as we do. Fantastic!" -Aquarius Records
"…a weird album, but one that gets better with subsequent listens . . . each time through I find myself more and more infatuated with the vocals." -Foxy Digitalis
"A vocal convergence between the intensity of David Tibet and the vulnerable charm of Antony Hegarty, played over something that sounds like early Mortiis. And while I assume that sounds like an overwhelming concoction that would likely yield a confusing result, the most impressive part of Hotel of Lost Light is just how well it all plays together, and in fact by the close, has evolved into a pop influenced 8 bit trip out. An incredible vision finely crafted into an exceptional album." -Guide Me Little Tape
Album descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
