SubtractiveLAD Kindred CATMD185

Now 7 albums in, Stephen Hummel has decided to push his SubtractiveLAD project into seemingly uncharted territory. Fans of Hummel's work know that at any given moment his songs can thoughtfully veer into more "classic" electronic music territory. On previous efforts, artists such as Boards of Canada and Brian Eno have been name-dropped as stylistic signposts but now such widescreen chill-room workouts are only one part of Hummel's big picture. Hummel has also injected elements of Jazz, Shoegaze and even Industrial into his works and excels in making such incorporations transparent and cohesive. With his latest album “Kindred”, Hummel adds the Berlin School era of Krautrock (and more specifically its close, more electronically minded sibling, Kosmische Musik) to his long list of inspirations. Hummel does so by utilizing more of the analog synthesizer sound-bed-of-choice of artists like Cluster, Ashra, and one of his biggest influences, Tangerine Dream. By mixing all these elements, Hummel is using his own history as well as the tradition of his influences to create an album that is on one hand somewhat future-retro but on the other undeniably fresh. “Kindred” could very well be the album that Hummel was born to create. An amalgam of the new and the old with a no apologies level of honesty and emotion. Each song a journey to some landscape we've never seen before. [ learn more about SubtractiveLAD]

the skeleton crew quarterly

Following Stephen Hummel’s output as SubtractiveLAD is almost like taking a part-time job; it has a fixed presence in your life but you’re never quite sure where it’s heading. Sure, releasing seven records in seven years has allowed Hummel to passively expand upon (and in some cases refine) his emotive, electronic compositions, but each turn of his metronomic productivity has further subdued its reception. Entering into 2011, the announcement of a new SubtractiveLAD record could easily be translated as routine, representing a necessary glue to hold n5MD’s more anticipated releases in place.

As surely as its five massive songs debunk the appearance of an EP, Kindred also levels our middling expectations. Few tracks this year will shake one out of their assumptions quite like ‘The Available Light’, which opens with futuristic sweeps and distant chorals before escalating into a full-blown Kosmisch freak-out. ‘Hesperus Is Phosphorus’ takes a less bipolar approach, establishing serene atmospheres and then trespassing them with undulating Oneohtrix Point Never-styled noodling. These first two tracks, which could be EPs unto themselves, set the progressive, unwieldy tone of Kindred. The LP’s latter half finds Hummel employing the same adventurous spirit to compact arrangements (and by compact, I mean eight minutes instead of twenty-two). Nowhere is SubtractiveLAD’s peculiar direction more earnest, creepy and successful as when ‘Hello, Goodbye’ veers from its laid-back acoustics into a space-disco abyss.

These new songs operate like video-game narratives, growing from sterile repetitions to epic, arpeggio-stacked crescendos. Heady, uncompromising; SubtractiveLAD’s work has rarely afforded so many risks and rewarded so many backhanded accolades. If Kindred’s transformative fireworks lack the immediacy to grab new listeners, it should at least bolster SubtractiveLAD’s rank and reputation as one of n5MD’s most consistent mainstays. textura

Having six full-lengths under one's belt likely means considerable stylistic territory has been covered over the course of one's recording career and that some degree of artistic restlessness is always in play when the blueprint for the next project starts getting drawn up. That's where we find Stephen Hummel at the start of his seventh SubtractiveLAD opus Kindred, where we discover him incorporating into his expansive sound-world Berlin-based krautrock and kosmische music. Elements associated with previous SubtractiveLAD releases surface in the form of post-rock signifiers and electric guitar playing, but the styles and approach of his past work are downplayed, making the Kindred a brand new chapter for the chameleonic Hummel, even if it's one that finds its inspiration in the pioneering electronic music associated with groups such as Tangerine Dream and Cluster.

The hour-long recording includes six tracks, with the opening two extended journeys of ambitious scope. “The Available Light” begins with four minutes of ‘70s-styled whooshes colliding with sheets of white noise before a pulsating analog synth pattern establishes an anchor for layers of explorative flurries. That serpentine synth pulsation obviously invites comparison to Tangerine Dream (one of Hummel's major influences) in its Phaedra-Rubycon-Ricochet era and signifies Hummel taking a full kosmische musik plunge. Ten minutes in, however, acoustic drums elbow the material into a zone whose synth-heavy ambiance suggests krautrock, even if the beats are a tad less taut and motorik than the krautrock norm. Pushing the track's episodic approach and epic reach to a logical conclusion, the addition of blues-drenched electric guitar playing to the piece's closing section gives the material a rather prog-like edge. The piece's twenty-two-minute running time suggests that it would be right at home occupying the full opening side on a vinyl album, while the next piece, “Hesperus Is Phosphorus,” as a slightly shorter epic the natural brethren to the opener, would work best as the album's closer. The major thing distinguishing the second piece from the first is the presence of a mid-track vocal episode where Hummel builds his voice into a sweeping choir that provides a smooth transition into the ambient section that follows.

“What You See” sees another shift in direction occur when Hummel works a bit of Drexciya-styled future-techno in amongst the tune's machine-driven whooshes and pulsations. The track's relatively shorter time frame (it still checks in at just under nine minutes) means that “What You See” is more unwavering and direct in its focus on a single mood, and the piece ultimately stands out as one of the album's best for exemplifying such clear-headed focus. “Hello, Goodbye” would appear to have been hauled in from some other recording session altogether, given how different its pretty acoustic melodies and laid-back, early morning vibe is from the album's other tracks—until, that is, a synthesizer squiggle slowly moves to the forefront and spirits the track away into the same hemisphere inhabited by the other four. It wouldn't be pushing things too far to see “Hello, Goodbye” as a microcosm of sorts for Hummel's SubtractiveLAD project in toto in its determination to constantly challenge, sometimes thwart, expectations and extend its stylistic purview into unpredictable areas. If the recording's last flourish, Hummel chanting “Goodbye,” turns out to be the formal end to the SubtractiveLAD story rather than simply the close of one more chapter in an ongoing series, the body of work that he's accumulated over the course of seven albums is certainly impressive. [sic]magazine

When you’re venturing into the distant reaches of the universe, it’s handy to have polyphonic synthesizers, wibbling arpeggiators and krautrock drums at hand to ward off the perils of infinite boredom. Deploy all of these elements skillfully and you can take listeners on a pretty expansive ride. Ooh look – a quasar!

Take Kindred’s 22-minute opener ‘The Available Light’. It starts off like an episode of Doctor Who, then really heats up once those arpeggiators begin bubbling feverishly. When the krautrock drums kick in, it’s kosmische heaven. Good work, subtractiveLAD. If I was nitpicking I’d say you could have rounded things off nicely after about 13 minutes, but it’s a pretty tasty way to introduce your new album – and had me eager to explore the rest.

‘Hesperus Is Phosphorus’ (great title) brings some chimey guitar lines along for the ride, with each element politely taking turns to throb to the fore. Again, at nearly 15 minutes it outstays its welcome, but there are some lovely passages. Next up, ‘What You See’ is probably the weakest link and reminds me of some of the music made for Commodore 64 games. If that’s your cup of tea, sip away.

Next up, the synthesized strings and reverb-drenched voices in ‘Boy’ are rather gorgeous. And, initially, finale ‘Hello, Goodbye’ almost sounds like pop music! Lovely flute sounds and phased guitars. Yum. However, arpeggios float into the mix and whisk you into an evil crusher of doom. Oh well, space can be unforgiving...

Ultimately, you can forgive subtractiveLAD his more meandering indulgences. When you’re charting a course across such cosmic expanses, it’s excusable to lose your way. While Kindred does prove a challenging listen, especially if you’re trying to make it from one end to the other in a single trip, the colourful new galaxies that you stumble across along the way are spectacularly radiant. cyclic defrost

On the heels of last year’s Life At The End Of The World collection, this seventh album from prolific Vancouver-based electronic producer Stephen Hummel as SubtractiveLAD Kindred sees the stylistic shifts towards post-rock influences and free-flowing ambience in evidence on his two preceding albums continuing in earnest. Indeed, it’s no real surprise to learn that Hummel’s creative inspiration for the five expansive tracks collected here comes from the Berlin School era of Krautrock, with the suitably kosmische likes of Cluster and mid-seventies era Tangerine Dream coming to mind as reference points here more than anything else. Epic fourteen minute long track ‘Hesperus Is Phosphorus’ ventures from an opening section consisting of wafting ‘Phaedra’-esque ambient synth landscapes, the slow chime of guitar fretwork hazily drawing into focus above the oceanic electronics, before gently burbling bass sequences and shimmering synth arpeggios propel things off into the distance, only for the entire track to suddenly drop out into a dreamy wash of wordless vocal harmonies and delicately trailing guitar textures. While the aforementioned track is fairly indicative of the deep ambient warmth on offer here, elsewhere ‘What You See’ sees shimmering, blocky-sounding analogue synths and crunching hiphop-centred rhythms introducing a more cold and moody vibe as glittering synth arpeggios flicker beneath near-acid squelches, before ‘Boy’ reintroduces the blurred post-rock influences, sending distant bursts of burnished-sounding guitar feedback howling over gauzy layers of Hummel’s own wordless vocal harmonies in what’s easily one of the most hypnotic and lulling moments on offer here. An excellent, deeply immersive album from Hummel that’s also his strongest and most fully-realised collection of music as SubtractiveLAD to date.

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