Another day, another long and curiously titled release. Introducing the latest single from Kyle Bobby Dunn, “Boring Foothills of Foot Fetishville”.
Stars of the Lid are a particularly well known and well loved project in the world of Ambient music. Their distinctive style of crystalline, reverbed guitars, drone and smeared orchestral instrumentation filled a niche in the genre and has often been emulated due to not only its success but effortless beauty. More has been said and felt through this minimalist, classical inspired music than most, more texturally and rhythmically complex works. After they separated in 2007 (although they still tour) some artists have taken it upon themselves to continue where SotL left off, and few are doing it with more grace than Kyle Bobby Dunn.
After his 2010 release A Young Person’s Guide To, Kyle has slowly refined this honest emulation, with his two albums last year being the most crystalline and delicate to date. If this recent single is anything to go by I think it’s fair to say any new album is probably going to continue following this trend.
Some of the tags Kyle has put on the Soundcloud page provide a useful insight into the track before we’ve even pressed play; #desperatelyinlove, #hopelesslyinlove, #feet, #feetcheese, the message is clear; we’re willing to put up with people’s quirks and oddities (ie smelly feet) because we care about them, or we would if we had someone to put up with, and this semi-resignation seeps through in the music as well. Swells of thin, reverbed guitar and violin ease in and out of the mix accompanied by richer underlying drone pulses. It’s painfully quiet, the sunbeams floating gently through the closed curtains and warming the room, the muffled rustling of bedsheets and the slow, unlaboured breaths of sleep. It’s a still and early hour before the day starts where we’re allowed to feel either blessed or alone, there’s no bias in the music. Some might find the glacial pace and minimal instrumentation isolating and melancholy, others warm, cosy and replete. It’s masterfully done.
There’s nothing not to like here, and I feel that even those who perhaps are unfamiliar with the genre and perhaps even sceptical of it would find something enjoyable. Find yourself some headphones and a quiet spot and drink it in, let yourself express whatever it is that needs to be felt and just let the delicate drones wash over you.
