Audiopile Review: Celer is one of thee masters of 21st-century ambient music. And, also, one of the most absurdly prolific artists ever. It’s extremely nice that some admirable labels are curating selections from the massive Celer discography of CDRs, cassettes, and downloads into proper vinyl editions. ‘Landmarks’, a 2018 collaboration with Forest Management, was originally a cassette on the very excellent Constellation Tatsu label. And it’s a doozy. Small wonder that, six years down the line, the label decided a record was in order. Like all Celer releases, it immediately hits the spot, providing exactly what you want from ambient music. But, like the best ambient, it also trades on deep, disconcerting ambiguity. Inspired by Paul Theroux’s novel ‘The Mosquito Coast’ and Peter Weir’s 1986 film adaptation, it’s a disquieting mix of cinematic wonder and dystopian anxiety. The themes explored are still uncomfortably relevant, which means this could never be just another blissed-out ambient reverie. This is the deep stuff.

Collaborating for the first time, Will Long and John Daniel combine their methods using tape machines, loops, and computers to score a reimagining of Peter Weir’s film and Paul Theroux’s novel “The Mosquito Coast”. Sourcing inspiration from a view of the film and book as a historical pendulum, the musicians found that these reinterpretations left them nostalgic for a different time, something that’s only partly imagined, and without the defined predictions about the life cycles of mass culture based on our limited understanding of current events.