Shaula

ambient

Another enigmatic addition to Under The Spire's roster, there's not a great deal of information floating around the net to reveal any substantial background info on this new artist, although if MySpace profiles are to be believed, Shaula is a lady from Japan. Far clearer and wholly more relevant is the quality of her music, which proves to be outstandingly good, even by the normal UTS standards. As has become conventionally the case with this label in general, the tone of the release converges on a richly melodic electroacoustic ambience, made from processed instrumental passages and more unusual recorded textures. The most successful example of Shaula's art comes with the ten-minute loop-based drift 'A Butterfly Deposit', whose delayed, wraithlike guitar harmonics and feathery hiss sculptures are about as close to unconsciousness as music gets. Elsewhere, the strange, manicured dripping noises of 'Moss Light' combine with airy drones to suggest abandoned buildings and decaying spaces and the folded guitar chimes on 'Ghost Of Me' overlap with Geiger counter crackle to great effect. Haze seems to have come from out of nowhere, and you'd have an arduous task on your hands trying to shed much more light on the background of its author, but hopefully we'll be hearing much more from Shaula in 2010. In the meantime, do try and snag yourself one of the 150 copies of this; it's a definite highlight of Under The Spire's impressive output to date - highly recommended. -Deleted Scenes,...