Hipwell

A gooey respite of Australian kosmiche with dub dalliances surfaces on the ever-expanding catalog of Island House Recordings. Adam Hipwell, already making an impression in the South Hemi with Wanderlust and Council of Elders, moves away from the more bridled and bound works of those bands for a record that’s traversing the cosmos at half speed and dragging its fingers through the gas clouds along the way. The album works through some brooding textures and psychic ramp up before it arcs into the diaphanous beauty of centerpiece “Big Eternal Beautiful.” The song soaks the tape with the sounds of aqueous caverns. Synths call out in whale song loneliness across the terrains of uncharted grottos.

The record routes through Emeralds’ glycerine coattails, letting the synths glisten and gleam with a softly arpeggiated gloss. This is especially apparent on the opener, “Cool Temperate,” but the vibrations ripple through most of the first half, with production help from Easy Dada. The record is tied together with an appreciation for the sublime — nights spent with The KLF on foam headphones, Dominique Guiot and Seastones intercut on mixtapes with Meddle and Obsucred deep cuts. This one is for the late night listeners, staring out at the infinite, looking for the place where the horizon is sewn to the sky.

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