ISOMER

"Face Toward The Sun"

Tesco Organisation - 2009

CD

Tesco hits the target again, this time with the third CD by David Tonkin, aka Isomer. We have already appreciated this Aussie's capacities in the interesting previous works, but with "Face Toward The Sun" the project achieves its full maturation. The uncommon ability to join different styles and move swiftly among them along the whole disc's running time stands immediately out, as well as a certain preference for dark atmospheres, which, however, never indulge into being neither too gloomy nor excessively industrial. It's a solemn, almost ambient melody that characterizes the best episodes, like "Fire Front, the marvellous closing "Dawn Chorus", with its acoustic chords resounding in the distance, like echoes, and the imposing tribalism coupled with classical music samples of "The Fog Of This World".

There are, of course, also noisier and more industrial-oriented moments, from the martial bits of "Restless Divinity", to the thundering "Poison The Well", with an old chanson sampled in the background, but everything stays sober and perfectly calibrated, without smelling of predictability. Maybe only the hypnotic and mantric title-track could have been resized to increase its effectiveness, but these are just small details. Isomer did well avoiding the trap of stereotypes and repetition, thus succeeding in the assemblage of a CD that you can listen with great pleasure, from the beginning to the end.

- Simon V.

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/isomerslounge

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