Review: Frailty by Andrew Lang

According to the notes on Bandcamp, Frailty by Andrew Lang is a departure from his previous piano-centric ambient music. Frailty follows an ebb and flow where the music reflects field recordings (The Colour of Memory, Fealty, Othering, Rub Your Eyes on Light), and despite the credited saxophone on Years & Years, it's hard to pick out specific instruments that have been used — a quality I find myself enjoying about the sounds on this album.

With guitar-based ambient music there's sometimes a sense that the effects become an instrument of equal expressiveness and depth to the guitar itself, and I definitely get that impression here. The processed field recordings and occasional whispers feel natural partly due to the filtering and saturation, making the sounds sit in the mix naturally instead of sitting on top of the music.

Frailty starts perhaps more restrained and darker than your memory of it will be. In fact, the way I remember this album feeling overall is hopeful and positive. However, if you go back to track 2, Regime Shift, you'll notice that it is dramatic and melancholic.

The subsequent track, Fealty, feels more neutral, with processed field recordings, and mournful lilting synths at the end. These synths fluidly lead into Frailty, the similarity between the two track titles and the music being so key here, but this is where the album hits its stride and becomes what defines the lasting impression it has on the listener.

The album clocks in at around 39 minutes, so it's on the shorter side, and it leaves me with a sense of wanting more. This means I tend to play it on repeat, which is how I know the general impression of the album is the positive and hopeful vibes from the latter half.

If you want to purchase Perceptual Tapes physical releases, I noticed you can find them on local record shops, like Norman Records for me in the UK. And the physical releases are definitely tempting with that incredible cover art.