Fathoms by Tapes and Topographies

The numinous, cosmic qualities of Fathoms are impartially disguised by a veil of gentle sadness, a quality magnified by the sublime echos in and around the freely floating harmonies. Fathoms is meditative and beautifully crafted. - Past Inside the Present

The album is awash in melancholy, a reflection of the cold, dark deep. The cover image and music bring to mind the scene in A.I. when David and Teddy become frozen and trapped at the bottom of the sea. With titles such as “A Year of Disappointments” and “Were It More Luminous”, the album seems a reflection of rumination. In “The Trouble With Dreams”, tape sounds squiggle across the sonic field, attempting to find bearing as the harbor chimes toll. Yet there is also solace in knowing that others are going through the same thing, struggling yet sinking. In another sense, to to fathom means to understand, and this album reaches for the soul with a consoling, empathetic hand. The music may be slow and sorrowful, but the eventual impression is one of comfort. – a closer listen

..another spellbinding set of melodic deconstructions entitled Fathoms. Fragments fashioned from piano, organ, & guitar are woven into a diaphanous textural fabric and then unfurled onto waves of warm, looping oscillations. Beautifully crafted and thoughtfully rendered, Gautreau offers the listener safe harbor at the edge of a deep and melancholic sea.
– stationary travels

Standout track “The Trouble With Dreams”
features waves of tone mingle with washes of antenna
signal squiggle, and even some vox mermana drift by as
well. Death by water never felt so good. Buoyant chimes
and gentle climes. Bathysphere organ and actual sized
bubbles rise on “Theory of Impossible Shapes.”
Gautreau is one busy being, but this is the project to help
him, or you unwind. Sink into the syrup synth sea.
-Thurston Hunger (KFJC)

Tracklist

1.	Monochrome Frost	5:38

2.	A Year of Disappointments	4:51

3.	The Trouble With Dreams	6:08

4.	Theory of Impossible Shapes	4:38

5.	Following the Megahertz	4:13

6.	Fathoms	4:49

7.	Lifted	3:00

8.	Certron 60	5:18

9.	Were it More Luminous	5:49

Credits

released January 24, 2018

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