Throughout The Vertical Luminous, shimmering vignettes of celestial melodies morph into unexpected shapes without concern for the verse-chorus form. While retaining a semblance of what came before on 2017’s The Unstruck Sound Centre, Paul Wilson’s new LP as F.Ampism enters a new frontier of direct-to-ear fidelity for the Brighton-based artist’s solo work. The listener is routed through a sonic pipeline where the boundaries between the electronic and the organic have been smeared out of sight. Synthesizers and musique concrète form a symbiotic soundscape of collage and, through Wilson’s masterful mixing, a physical proximity to the sounds become nearly palpable, adding a sublime feeling of interiority.
On opening track ‘Lunar Mansions’ a plethora of synthesized sounds blossom from beneath, introducing a landscape and pacing that stretch across the following thirty-four minutes. Harmonic bell clusters flutter across expansive tones on ‘The sparkles on the water connect me to the sun’. Pulsing ethereal emissions drip from the walls of ‘The severed head is smiling’. ‘The flab in my mind’ delves into the subterranean movements of micro-organisms as angelic voices stutter through the breezeway. In its entirety, the constellation of elements that appear throughout The Vertical Luminous lifts the work into a rhapsodic orbit around a concentrated, singular vision. The beautifully designed jacket by Johannes Schebler goes toe to toe in conversation with the bubbling cosmic yarns contained within it.
With a pedigree of releases under his belt on notable underground labels such as Chocolate Monk, Ikuisuus, Not Not Fun, Poot, and Lal Lal Lal, Wilson’s output is far-reaching. In addition to the solo outings of F.Ampism, he also plays in Kaloja, a duo with Jan Anderzén (Tomutonttu, Kemialliset Ystävät); Yayoba, a trio with Johannes Schebler (Baldruin, Grykë Pyje) and Jani Hirvonen (Grykë Pyje, Last Night on Earth); and is also a member of outré free-sound quintet, Bolide. Wilson’s monthly radio program on Resonance Extra, titled The Infinite Onward, showcases a similar interest in the outer offerings of transcendental sound. The Vertical Luminous fuses F.Ampism’s interest in mind-body interconnection as a wild excursion undulating through the streets of sound, feeling and thought.
