Audiopile Review: 2020 album from the UK-based experimental artist Luke Cowan, which has somehow survived staying print the past first years despite being pressed in a micro edition of 100, the final copies recently scooped up by one of our more discerning distributors. Somewhere between the experimental folk axis of Old Saw/Tongue Depressor and the deconstructed chamber-ambiance of Andrew Chalk, Cowan sets out a small array of steel-string guitar, prepared piano, chimes and other weathered ephemera, layering a slow creak of folksy ambiance atop field recordings of burbling creeks, occasionally employing some outside help in the form of sawing cello or violin. Completely unhurried, Cowan patiently loops and layers the rustic instruments until they arrive at a meditative state in some netherworld between jazz, folk, post-rock and natural ambience. Sublime stuff, and you’ve probably only got one chance at snatching one of these.

The music was recorded quickly over the first four days of September 2020. None of it was preconceived, and with perhaps one exception, all takes of piano, guitar, etc., were the first and only recorded versions. With this release, I consciously took an approach that was entirely spontaneous and instinctual, and tried to be accepting of all of the music as it unfolded. Rebecca Burden and Imogen Wood respectively provided improvised cello and violin sketches, with Rhys Copeland doing the mastering. The cover photograph is of a spot under a willow by the river in Ely. After an initial digital release, I was eventually able to have it pressed onto a hundred records, which come in hand-printed recycled card sleeves.