Audiopile Review: Four years on from his debut LP, The Indoor Gardener, Duncan Thornley’s Double Geography project is reignited, this new album issued once again by Invisible Inc. While his debut was a one-man show, Thornley has enlisted a small crew for Open Water to help flesh his sound out, including Greg Foat and the in-demand saxophonist Kaidi Akinnibi—Black Midi, Tom Misch, Ill Considered, and DoomCannon are just a few of his credits. The additional cast has triggered a notable shift in trajectory for Double Geography, the live instrumentation smooths out the previous album’s slicker sound, one that was steeped in the atmosphere of the 90’s global ambient underground. Thornley strikes a lusher, organic feel that comes closer to the globally-minded ambient-jazz of 80s ECM merged with the heat-soaked new age recently heard on Séance Centre’s Triángulos De Luz Y Espacios comp. With sails set straight for the Balearic, the ensemble chase the sun across warm waters with buoyant fretless bass and the smooth-jazz interplay between clarinet and saxophone, the wind behind it all supplied by Thornley’s set of airy synths. A sun-kissed cross pollination between downtempo, jazz, new age and fourth world geared 100% to devotees of Joan Bibiloni’s early work, but it should also be investigated by those into Lars Bartkuhn’s recent LP, Nomad. A perfect album to celebrate the summer solstice!

Invisible Inc once again presents another incredible full-length album from the talented Double Geography. Following on from 2020’s “The Indoor Gardener”, the new LP “Open Water” is bathed in a similar blissful atmosphere.

Double Geography aka Duncan Thornley (one half of Weird Weather and studio engineer at MAP Studios), following the success of his debut album now presents his second album for Invisible Inc. Leaning towards the label’s more ambient and laidback output, the album is themed around water, transience and escape and sounds as unshackled and free-flowing as you’d expect…you can almost feel the breeze in the air and the sun on your skin.

There is a noticeable progression in the music from his previous releases, this time featuring several additional musicians to compliment Thornley’s electronics with live instrumentation…adding a complexity and depth to each of these compositions and an overall ‘organic’ quality that makes these new pieces sound like quite a departure from the first album. Fretless bass, clarinet and saxophone decorate the music with refrains and melodies that have been enchanting our imagination even in their absence since first hearing them.