Last month we introduced Tendrils, the forthcoming full-length from Seattle-based ambient pop project Old Man of the Woods. “Recorded during a residency at the Culterim Gallery in an abandoned German sanatorium,” we described, “the album explores the close relationship of preservation and decomposition, evolving the goth pop of previous releases like Votives and Triptych I to increasingly evocative results.” Pitching listeners straight into the haunted vibe of the release, lead single ‘Anticipating’ highlighted the melancholy and desire inherent within Miranda Elliott’s work, “playing like a private party for one held in memory of all that came before,” as we put it, “which nevertheless, as per its title, holds hope in the possibility that that which has been lost might be accessible some way down the line.”
Now Old Man of the Woods is back with latest single, ‘Amber’. A continuation of the strange blend of retrospection and yearning which so marks the record. That sense of existing within both the hushed aftermath of something and the unformed period before a new beginning. With a languorous, enveloping sound, again the mood is undeniably ghostly, though its eeriness carries not so much fright or unease as a sense of possibility. As though in connecting the long-dawned past with a gesture towards the future, Elliott invites us to consider just how interconnected the stages of so-called linear time might be.
i breathe your outline
conceive your outline
line by line
line by lineamber
Tendrils will be released on the 9th June.