Los Angeles composer Clint Heidorn put forth his debut Atwater this past year with only mystery and allure to grace its presentation. The cover starkly displays an inverted cross, arranged with tree bones, glued to an LP sleeve smeared with an earthy brown paint hue. Though the album's logo illustrated on the sticker could easily lead a black metal die-hard astray, the rest of the package is very much emblematic of Atwater's musical content-- the sticks acting as a relic from the environment Heidorn elucidates, and enabling the intimacy of artist-to-listener interaction.
The environment in which the music inhabits is barren-- leafless trees and twigs scattered across dry soil as a bleached sky lingers above. Atwater's nine instrumentals conjure this landscape by employing space and silence. Rarely do the arrangements intend to harmonize and instead suggest desolation within their thoughtfully spare pacing. This patience bestows subtle poise upon the music as well. Such a close relationship between these facets underpins Atwater's immensely overarching motif.
Despite its largely well parsed and spacious recording, Atwater has its apexes. Nominous violin brings implicit triumph to the guitar refrain of the second track; the fourth movement adds to its minimal canvas with sweltering strings and nearly romantic saxophone soloing. These moments draw arcs of varying height and drama upon the album's otherwise nebulous flow, which refers primarily to its unhurried fluidity.
Perhaps not only to attain a sense of mystique, the absence of titles among these pieces give way to the album's cohesion. How Heidorn presents Atwater, not unlike how he composes its content, comes with great consideration. Consistency is exhibited in the vicinity of downcast melodies and barren, forlorn evocation. The album's introduction and close happen upon kindred ground, with sprawled guitar arpeggios that accrue vastness as additional instruments creep underneath. It's almost as if Atwater's sweep is endless, and if that is the case, I'm content with where I'm left.
[Stream/Buy Atwater from Clint Heidorn]
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