Catriel Nievas, Joe Wheeler ‎– Balance (cass)

“[Catriel Nievas and Joe Wheeler] nail it, basically, using field recordings and minimal guitar to present austere, enigmatic and often quite baffling compositions. There’s a little overlap in approach with artists like Graham Lambkin or Vanessa Rossetto, I guess, but there’s something about the way in which the material is handled here that is plenty original. Field recordings are nothing new, true, and even the studied nonchalance the duo brings to the explanations of their chosen material (‘raw recordings of unfinished travels’ – Nievas; ‘to capture really whatever was in front of me at the right time’ – Wheeler) has a familiar ring. Yet they succeed in bringing something of the texture of lived, everyday experience into their recordings, the banality and magic of living in the world, that gives these pieces a kind of … truth, really, although one that’s abstract and generated from their dreamy, fuzzy textures rather than literal fidelity to any locations. These tracks have a foggy, messy quality that is particularly endearing, despite us not knowing whether they’re made up of single recordings or several stitched together – to be honest, clues about what’s going on, where, and with whom are thin on the ground, although there often seems to be distinct shifts in location, occasionally even transforming into a disorientating non-space of hazy, drone-like hiss.”
~ Paul Margree, We Need No Swords