Right here, the intermediary is Morgan’s automobile window, defending him from the worst of the inferno. He makes no effort on Lake Fireplace to situate himself on the frontlines, inside the hell of crumbling vegetation and dying animals the Australian painter William Strutt captured in his nice bushfire portray Black Thursday. The urgency of the local weather disaster has not pushed Morgan to plumb his sound for extra excessive locations it could actually enterprise (his extremes skew quiet, as on the magisterial drone albums coast/vary/arc// and Faults, Coasts, Strains). “Arrhythmia” makes use of a drum beat that appears labored and burdened, however the pneumatic dub chords immediately situate us within the acquainted soundworld of his 2000s Kranky run, and it doesn’t sound rather more threatening than the stuff he was making about thermodynamics initially of his profession.
Lake Fireplace options a few of Morgan’s finest sound design since his canonical 2000s trio of First Narrows, Plume, and Limitless Falls. Whereas even the most effective Loscil tracks are inclined to a temper and milk it for seven minutes or so at a time, these songs meander freely, with the bitter strings of “Candling” yielding to an odd coda the place a flute synth is allowed to only play for some time. The glacial throb of “Ash Clouds” and “Doux” means that Morgan’s conversations with Lawrence English about “wealthy” sound sources that led to their superior collaboration Colors of Air have rubbed off on his solo work. Which may clarify the unusually wealthy low finish on “Bell Flame,” with a gradual pulse that approximates the tempo of a automobile that has slowed down to look at a scene of horror. That is highway journey music for the brand new regular.
But you may also hope the widespread devastation on the West Coast would encourage one thing extra substantial than a robust providing by an artist developing on 30 years of dauntless consistency. It’s onerous to shake the sensation this porous music can take in any context during which it’s offered. Who’s to say that if it have been known as Equivalents 2, we wouldn’t be considering of cute cumulus clouds as a substitute of the dystopian brown smokescapes which have change into a truth of life for thus many individuals? A number of these people will most likely additionally witness the burning of the West Coast from the relative security of their vehicles, nevertheless it’s onerous to say for what number of extra generations, and even years, such a luxurious will final. If issues keep the best way they’re, Lake Fireplace could also be remembered much less as an alarming portent than a relic of a time after we had issues quite a bit simpler.
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