Rural Routes on Standard Form (Kyle Bobby Dunn revisited)
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Label: Standard Form
Year: 2010
Format: 3" CD
Rural Routes is the exquisite 3” CD series curated by Damian Valles on the Toronto-based label Standard Form. We were first introduced to the both Damian Valles and Standard Form here at Soundscaping namely through the first volume in this short-length series, and given the name our impressions thus far have been closely associated with rurality. Looking at the thoughts and creative process behind each edition, it has also been evident the musicians have gone to lengths to return to home traits or visited back-country places which were fit as the scenery for their endevour. Such was the sound of Damian Valles’ first edition with lingering, repetitive electric guitar notes echoeing off in a barren, Americana-laden landscape. Molvær-esque saxophones support the opening track Low Population Density – a common characteristic of these areas where isolated landscapes are paramount – while the main theme recurs ever so slightly reverbed to a hollowed space of guitar chords and underlying electric drones. Incidentally yours truly was reading Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy while listening to the first, two volumes of Rural Routes, and the music provided a perfect soundtrack to a desolate landscape where the sound is allowed to expand, Swale in particular, with the dramatic drums and guitar sending sparks flying off into the quiet allowing the listener to take in the impressions of sound portraying this low tract of land. There is something akin to Ry Cooder in Valles’ sound and as “Minor Variance” rounds off this first EP we slip in and out of consciousness to gentle washes of sweeping guitars and gleaming lights.
Rural Routes proved no less impressive when Kyle Bobby Dunn took up reins to deliver the second volume. For his venture, Dunn went back to his childhood area of Calgary, Alberta, and the theme remains the same; majestic, slow-moving soundscapes to mimic the solitude and openness of these areas serving as source of inspiration. “Dissonant Distances” is a spacious piece, glimmering with strings, bells and tinkering sounds stretched out in time, subdued to a gently, lulling drone in the background as ethereal whistles like a ghost train passing in the night albeit moving in slow motion – both uplifting in its rise and nostalgic and somewhat sad in its slow tread. “Senium III” tells me little by way of track title, but the beautifully, flowing soundscapes are very reminiscent of Dunn’s recent introspective “A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn” – post-classical, post-minimalist ambient compositions of mindful grandiosity, never imposing or pretentious, simply experimentation and exploration of sound that would completely absorb the listener, until inevitably fading to silence towards the end at which point you’d be aware of the evolution throughout the past ten minutes. This is exactly how “Senium III” strikes me too – like a continuation of that work, to tie the composer’s own style in with the setting of Rural Routes – and it succeeds to applaudable degrees.
Since then two more editions of Rural Routes have been announced, so we will probably return to check out this exquisite series in the future.
