Digitonal – Save Your Light For Darker Days

Digitonal (aka Andy Dobson) has been making electronic sounds since around 1997. But surprisingly this is only his second album. It is an acute mix of ambient orchestral waves and cut up, warp like beats. Think Boards of Canada with more strings, or the more ambient side of Four Tet.

When mixing strings and orchestral backgrounds with electronic music they can sometimes overwhelm a song, pushing it too far into the orchestral arena. But Digitonal find that delicate balance between crystalline beats and epic orchestrations. This balance is very difficult to find, only some achieve it without sounding cheesy or generic. But songs like ‘Silver Poetry’ are fragile yet all encompassing, the mood and balance is wighted just right. ’93 Years On’ with its romantic saxophone lead sounds like moody lounge Jazz, and the more I listen to this record I am reminded of Jon Hopkins, and in some parts break beat pioneers Hybrid.

Ambient music as a whole tends to revolve around the same themes and can therefore suffer from being uninspiring and dull. Save Your Light… doesn’t fall into that area. Whilst it is not necessarily pioneering, it is a tight and well crafted record. Spacey electronics, starlight bleeps and squeaks, it all adds up to a nice relaxant. Any of you folks heading to Glade festival have a look for these, well worth checking out. Perfect early morning music.
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Links
Digitonal [myspace]