Three years after their debut, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, the collaboration between Adam Wiltzie, of Stars Of The Lid among many others, and composer Dustin O’Halloran, are today releasing their second album, Atomos. The record is actually their score for Wayne McGregor’s contemporary dance work of the same name, performed last year at Sadler’s Wells in London, and is out via Erased Tapes and Kranky ahead of a European tour beginning at St. George’s Church in Brighton on October 17.
As you may expect from the parties involved, the album is a series of aerated, immaculate neoclassical compositions, meshing string figures and piano chords, sometimes fringed by the buzz of electronics. Each piece is played out into yawning chasms of space, allowing the harmonics to gradually unfurl and sometimes coaxing gentle disquietude, as in ‘Atomos IX’, or growing urgency, from the pacy arpeggios of ‘Atomos VIII’. Most frequently, though, they come together to forge passages of stately, burnished effervescence, nowhere better than on ‘Atomos V’ where the strings’ surging folds inwards, sweeping away gradually, only to return in tremulous iterations. We’ve got a full play to mark its release, so listen above, and get hold of it at Erased Tapes’ site, where there are full details of the tour too.
