Musician/filmmaker Sarah Lipstate, alongside having served as a guitarist in Parts & Labor, creates washes of looped guitar under the name Noveller. Her third album Desert Fires is the first to be released on her own imprint Saffron Recordings, after having her first two, Paint on the Shadows and Red Rainbows, released on Carlos Giffoni's No Fun Productions.
Though not as noisy as this album's predecessor, Lipstate offers a more sedate and discernible approach on Desert Fires. The abrasively bowed guitar is used to a lesser extent, maybe even absent on this album and the spacey, confounding song structures are also not as prominent. However, I don't think this change in direction was meant to add any restraints to Lipstate's music; the foreboding, ominous atmosphere and dissonance are still present on Desert Fires.
The opening track "Almost Alright" features slow arpeggios hovering over thick, distorted drones--and while this does create a desolate environment, I find this to be my least favorite piece on the album because it doesn't seem to evolve or justify much progression and instead, meanders. However, "Kites Calm Desert Fires", ironically the most assaulting track on Desert Fires, is my favorite track: the combination of fluttery notes and feedback-laden chords equates to a really enveloping crescendo that ends with a fantastic and noisy deconstruction. The following track "Toothnest (For Chris Habib)" even includes noodling towards the end that has a tone similar to that of Robert Fripp. The closer "Fades" is a perfect conclusion to the album; it has a sparseness that is unique to this track, however never lets go of the low, uneasy hum that persists throughout the album.
Desert Fires is Lipstate's most diverse effort yet, while also being her most quiet. It maintains an equal balance of both variety and cohesion; each track goes through changes, but just enough to ease smoothly into the next. This album manages to be more unsettling than the first two, despite its silent nature. The emptiness adds a unique form of apprehension to the album, proving that the spaces between the notes are just as vital to the music as the notes themselves.
[Noveller Myspace]
[Buy Desert Fires from Saffron Recordings]
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