Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose – Bridge Carols
(Holocene Music; 2010)
7.5/10
Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose’s first collaborative album, Bridge Carols, is just that – a bridge between her fixation on words and vocals, and his aptitude for sound.
Rose’s musical concoctions set up the background ambience, while Gibson’s sonorous voice carries you through time and space to some imaginative destination. She mixes wordless vocals with snippets of verse written long ago and never used. By recording songs everywhere from a basement to a forest, the pair creates an ambient, electronic, atmospheric sound.
The resulting lyrics flow seamlessly with Rose’s experimental background music formed by unidentifiable sounds that together creates a harmonious musical stream.
While all the tracks may sound similar, each one unfolds in a different manner. One of the more lively songs of the album is “Leaving, Believing,” written in a way that has a bit more of a storyline to follow.
Trial track: “Younger”