Billy Gomberg – Comme
It took me a bit to get into Billy Gomberg’s “Comme”, although i can’t really say why. The album starts off beautifully: a resonating ambience opening a clear and warm space, crackling fragments dancing with clicky tones, somebody’s breathing and humming, distant guitar tones echoing in the background. Everything one could ask for in a great record, but maybe this was just a tad too beautiful, a little too cute in its effort to draw in the listener. But as “Comme” progresses the initial pace becomes a little slower, a little more sparse. Combined with the sweetness that was already present in the first minutes of this recording, the album falls into a beautiful state between wake and sleep. Rays of slowly moving guitar tones, fragments of somnambulant melodies – more than often this feels like standing on somebody’s rooftop after a long night watching the dawn break over the city skyline and not quite realizing if this is real or just a dream. The last track just fits perfectly into that exact mood with its sine-wave like guitar-drone, its hushed clicks and crackles leaving a nearly zen-like state.
“Comme” is definitively not your average experimental ambient album. With its clicky fragments and shifting tones it offers a more pointillistic flow than the common regular run of the mill wash of distortion run into a reverb and a filter. It is a beautiful piece of work that just needs a bit more time to develop its soothing magic. Although already a couple of months old this is a great album for the blooming spring with its airy tone and ambience.
