Album Review: Perils - S/T

Created in a bit of an ‘exquisite corpse’ style, Perils is the work of two artists from the same genre operating in unfamiliar and anxious territory.

The press materials for the record sum it up the best—ambient composer Kyle Bobby Dunn found himself exhausted and full of confusion following the completion of his landmark triple album, last year’s most excellent Kyle Bobby Dunn and TheInfinite Sadness; Thomas Meluch, who records under the moniker Benoit Pioulard, found himself transplanted from the United Kingdom to Seattle, uncertain how to proceed in a new environment.

Meluch sent recorded fragments to Dunn piece by piece, who then added his own textures to them. The resulting collaborative work is an interesting culmination—bringing together familiar elements from both artist’s respective backgrounds, all while treading newer sonic ground, resulting in a moody, atmospheric experience that captures the feelings of uncertainty and doubt one can face in life.

Spread out over ten tracks, Perils alternates between pieces that are distinctly Dunn and distinctly Meluch—and then there are others that are something else entirely. Cascading guitar waves dominate the opening piece, “Colours Hide My Face,” as well as the coda to the album’s first side, the delicate “La Brume”—calling to mind Dunn’s trademark slow like molasses up a hill guitar textures. “Resin” is pleasantly reminiscent of Meluch’s psychedelic pop sensibilities (the sound he is best known for when he’s not creating weird tape loop manipulations) echoing “Hawkeye,” the most likeable song from his 2013 effort Hymnal.

And what about those in between pieces—the ones where there is no clear leader steering the direction the sound is taking?

Those pieces are the most menacing and most claustrophobic of the bunch—blending the darker elements of both artists to truly capture those feelings that both Dunn and Meluch were trying to translate from their psyche to tape by embarking on this project—specifically the haunted strains of “Maps of Sinking” and “Flaw, and the somber, contemplative rippling of “The Unbecoming” really push Perils into a different territory.

Not that the duo are holding out on the listener (overall, Perils is an excellent album) but they save the best for last, and Dunn retains a bit of his trademark sense of humor with the album’s closing piece “It Was Going Great. Then It Wasn’t”—five minutes of sheer bliss with Dunn’s distended guitar drones playing with Meluch’s fragile, distorted loops warble beautifully in the foreground.

I think it goes without saying that, to get any kind of benefit of enjoyment out of Perils, it helps to have an active interest in a) ambient and experimental music as a whole and b) either one, or both, of the artists responsible. Even though it was pieced together upwards of three years ago, it serves as quite a cap on Meluch’s banner year—he’s been on a victory lap since releasing Sonnet earlier in the year, along with its two companion pieces. It’s by no means the best work in either artist’s canon (see KBD and The Infinite Sadness for that) but it is a fascinating soundscape that is temporarily created by the two, exploring a captivating way of dealing with life’s anxieties.

Perils is out now via Desire Path.