3rd release from Mark McGuire (Emeralds/Spectrum Spools) and Julian Gulyas as The Amazing Births, and their first on vinyl. 'Younger Moon' was recorded in the depths of a Westlake, Ohio winter this year, and finds McGuire's ribbony guitar and electronic sequences in amorphous marriage with fluid layers of modular synth and electronics conducted by Gulyas. They make a great pairing together, finding enough space within each other's dense emissions to feel free yet instinctively synchronised. The A-side departs planet earth at 'Dial Out', where McGuire's heart-lifting riffs are subsumed beneath banks of bubbling analogue texture to lushly disorienting effect. The second track and album highlight 'P.K. Ripper' calms down somewhat after the ecstatic intro, invoking a more meditative intent with subtly growing layers of spindly arpeggios and gentle guitar spirals recalling Terry Reilly, but the stereo strafing synth chaos and tape-warped voices lend an up-to-date, fractal trippiness. On the other side 'Whelm' is relatively much more subdued and pastoral, much closer to McGuire's work in Emeralds, elegantly chugging along the gentle upward trajectory of guitar repetitions buoyed by floral synthesizer evolutions. Finally, 'Eclipsed By The Younger Moon' brings us fluttering to earth with McGuire's beautifully attuned and liquified strings really taking centre stage before ultimately melting into a hypercoloured soup of synth noise.
