The recording project of Arizona’s Lela Amparo, Amparo combines acoustic folk and ambient soundscapes to paint vivid, emotive songs. The first release of label Taabiir, Rains began with the intention to work purely in the electronic medium, though after being loaned a guitar Amparo found her direction changed, with a series of guitar hooks and loops emerging, and allowing for the genre-bending sound to form.
As we wrote in a preview, opener ‘Ruby’ “combines sombre piano, sparse guitar and minimal spoken samples to form something that sounds moving and elegiac,” and this wistful shimmer is present across the EP. ‘Lidkoeb’ is perhaps a little more insistent, the indecipherable voices that flit in and out giving the track an introspective edge, as though too busy in its own head to distinguish the external world. This sensation is perhaps true of the release as a whole, a kind of sad wonder at being outside of so much, the environment moving around you and the people who inhabit it, all unaware of your trivial but life-determining problems.
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The final track ‘Balderdash’ remains true to this aesthetic, though takes it a step further. The guitar loop cycles with its personal feeling once more, though is this time supported by a cinematic swell, as though Rains wishes to reinforce the inherent beauty in the situation, no matter how melancholic, and leave you with a mindful appreciation of your small part in the world around you.
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Rains is out now via Taabiir and available from the Amparo Bandcamp page.