It is perfectly possible to like an album without really knowing why you do – and that proves to be exactly the case with Vermont’s second album. Kompakt get the description exactly right with their term of the duo’s ‘synth daydreaming’, because the phrase captures some of the meandering lines that travel round the stereo picture in the course of the album. The match of Motor City Drum Ensemble’s Danilo Plessow and Innervisions’ Marcus Worgull continues to bring intriguing results, and ‘II’ has nice, spacey backdrops and a rich blend of synthesized colours. Some of the music is very delicate – ‘Chanang’ feels like dolls’ house music at times – but then ‘Dschuna’ feeds out tracers of bright light, with some beautifully and subtly arranged strings later on. ‘Hallo Von Der Anderen Seite’ offers soothing noises and fragmented loops in a colourful sonic jungle, with no beats to disrupt the ambience, but then by contrast ‘Skorbut’ has darker shades. An album that keeps giving, even in the most ambient of surroundings.
Ben Hogwood
5 out of 5
http://www.kompakt.fm/releases/ii
VERMONT – II – KOMPAKT
