Offthesky and 'The Beautiful Nowhere'
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Label: Hibernate
Year: 2011
Format: CD/Vinyl
Hibernate Recordings sees us revisit the music repertoire of Offthesky aka Jason Corder, a Kentucky-born come Denver-resident, who is no new recruit in the electronic music scene. Corder has a range of releases behind him, having visited such notable labels as Databloem, Home Normal, Experimedia, Symbolic Interaction, Resting Bell and many more.
Corder’s music style centers around simple patterns involving piano and guitar, both instruments which his mastering of stems from a history of autodidacity from an early age – and choice of instrumentation in The Beautiful Nowhere heavily leans on these. This was evidently also a self-imposed rule for the concept, less electronic processing and more acoustic instruments. In addition to beautiful, meandering guitar melodies, there is gently played piano tones, lingering strings and light as whisper vocal and percussive elements (cymbals, vibraphone) and generally a good selection of warm, fuzzy sounds that are produced from harmonium, toy piano and string instruments.
The Beautiful Nowhere comes off like a delicate amalgamation of sounds from all my favourite musicians and Corder’s peers – Sawako, Tape, Xela, Taylor Deupree, but Jason Corder has also nurtured his own distinct sound. Whereas the sound is pleasantly abstract and leaves lots of room for interpretation and thought – each song is also comfortably anchored in tangible, moving melodies. Across 10 compositions, I marvel at the variety despite the similarity between each song – as is usually the case on many electronic music recordings. Possibly this can be attributed to Corder’s use of lots of acoustic instruments and employing these in different settings to create quite unique listening experiences as we glide from one song to the next.
Particular highlights for yours truly are the gently reverberating and gliding Melt and Wander, the lofty, dreamy vocals in the wonderfully soothing Whittling You Little Lights and the soft and restrained masterpiece of Round Fever River – which gives me something of an aural orgasm reminiscent of what I once experienced when I first heard Plaid’s Ralome (Rest Proof Clockwork).
In short, nothing short of a breath-taking album by offthesky, and just to give you a taste of what you should not miss, listen to an excerpt below:
