Causeyoufair L’Sonnet - Vol. I and Vol. II
Though structure and progression are hardly necessities in a genre as meditative as ambient music, if your double album is over three hours long – as Causeyoufair’s L’Sonnet opus is – they might be qualities you could benefit from.
It can be hard to ascribe any real analysis to soundscapes, but these 33 tracks feel very much like background music more than something to focus on – much moreso than the works of transcendent masters William Basinski and Stars of the Lid to which Causeyoufair loftily compares himself.
That’s not to say that L’Sonnet is a bad release. Some tracks have a shimmering layer of frosty distance to them, whilst others offer the immeasurable feeling of warmth that comes only from these kinds of deep atmospheres, placing you alone in soft reflection inside a veritable cathedral of reverb. The requisite swells and dips in texture are all here; it just feels like they’re not to any particular end. There’s a lot of very similar sound palettes used which, combined with the fact many tracks feel largely improvised and unedited, gives the impression that this fairly self-indulgent trip might not have been that hard to create.
Causeyoufair’s music has seen success on sleep playlists, and if this is the aim of the project then a musical analysis need not apply and L’Sonnet hits its mark. Unfortunately, as a listening experience it really doesn’t leave a huge impression, even after multiple spins. The effectiveness of the highlights – the haunted vibe of ‘For the Love For Never’, the distant orchestration of ‘One Needed Dreams’, the joyful drama of ‘The Obsolete Blossoms’ – is diluted by the sheer quantity of largely forgettable material surrounding them. If you’re not aiming for slumber, listening to this vast record involves wading through too much homogeny to get to the hidden gems of melody and harmony.
