Avi C. Engel: Nocturne (Soundtrack For An Invisible Movie)
(Shaking Field/ Somewherecold Information)
Cassette | CD | DL
Out Now
Andy Brown drifts right into a blissful trance with the most recent album from Toronto-based artist, Avi C. Engel. He shares his ideas for Louder Than Battle.
Singer-songwriter appears like an more and more insufficient description in the case of Toronto-based artist, Avi C. Engel (they/ them). Whereas they definitely compose and sing lovely songs, it’s their potential to create a deeply immersive and evocative atmospheare that actually transports you as a listener. This has been significantly true with their most up-to-date releases, together with final yr’s chic Too Many Souls. Nocturne (Soundtrack For An Invisible Movie) submerges us – as soon as once more – in Engel’s dreamy, nocturnal world.
The sound of howling winds fills my headphones on opening instrumental, Close to Snake Island. The gudok aches like a funeral procession. I shut my eyes and movie myself coming into some darkish, windswept forest on the stroke of midnight. Appropriately sufficient, contemplating current occasions, it jogs my memory of these atmospheric items Dean Hurley put collectively for the final sequence of Twin Peaks. “The place does a moth go when it rains?” Engel asks on the following observe. The picture of tiny wings in a downpour actually sticks in my thoughts because the observe unfolds.
Engel effortlessly blends acoustic guitar, talharpa, melodica, percussion, discipline recordings and gudok to create just a little hidden world so that you can step inside. A spot of melancholic magnificence that gives some much-needed shelter from the storm. Nostalgia, a Saccharine Poison is a beautiful 7-minute instrumental that feels – conversely – like medication. My respiratory steadies with the gradual rise and fall of the music, stress dissipates and stress begins to ebb away. What extra might you ask for?
The celestial-folk of Bones Beguiling leads us by some sparse, starlit panorama as Engel sings a couple of “moon-drowned discipline” and a few “untellable fact.” Thriller drips from each notice and I’m misplaced in another person’s dream. It’s not each album that has this type of impact. With minimal percussion and a hypnotic guitar motif, E Minor Fermented casts its spell. The observe might go on for half an hour and I wouldn’t even realise. There’s magic on this moon music.
Into The Golden Void appears like a soundtrack to some transcendental awakening. “All is forgiven/ All is destroyed” comes the mediative mantra as we float into blissful oblivion. Engel’s beautiful voice acts as a guiding mild. Truthfully, you really want to take heed to this album on headphones. Night time Stroll In The Loon Sanctuary is a ghostly, experimental instrumental. Footsteps echo as we head into the inky blackness of the night time. The observe hums, clicks and flutters in my ears because the moon drifts behind a cloud. Now it’s darkish.
Ariel finds us floating on some limitless celestial sea, drained and misplaced in time. “Chilly infinity glow/ Heal each phrase/ Meaningless and complete” Engel sings as we bob up and down on the pitch-black waves. Phrases like this may occasionally sound just a little bleak but the music – and album as an entire – is immensely comforting. We lastly drift ashore with the attractive Cocoon, an instrumental constructed round a repeated acoustic guitar motif. Different instrumentation seeps in as we lastly lay our weary bones right down to relaxation.
Engel started recording the album throughout a interval of sleeplessness and despair and completed it as they got here out the opposite aspect. It’s their hope that the album would possibly present some sort of consolation to equally unsettled souls. It has definitely soothed mine. For those who really feel such as you want a break from all of the insanity of 2025 then Nocturne (Soundtrack For An Invisible Movie) is correct right here, able to take you away.
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Yow will discover Avi C. Engel on Bandcamp, Instagram, Bluesky, Fb and Patreon.
All phrases by Andy Brown. You may go to his writer profile and browse extra of his opinions for Louder Than Battle right here.
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