Coen Oscar Polack & Hermen Wilken, The Language of Mountains is Rain (CDR Narrominded)

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"Under trees it rains twice". A zen banality, a philosophical sophism? Perhaps, but here, a simple observation and preparatory remark.

On this release, it does indeed rain twice. In the wonderful set of four black-and-white photographs covering each side of the gatefold package, and in the processed environmental recordings at the heart of the music.

Precipitation fills the sound, undodgeable drops and engulfing sheets of it. The first track begins as a calming drone, out of which rises very well-crafted detail, melodious and attractive, growing more so with each breath.

We go cloud-sailing, gazing into the far miles of the sky ahead with a delicate, heavenly spray on our faces, which soon overwhelms and overtakes the earspace. A downpour! A heavenly organ, a very earthy sax, its bleating treated and strange and offered almost as an extended coda to the first twelve minutes.

The second piece begins with a recording of rain beating down - on a corrugated tin roof? It becomes louder and seemingly solidifies into hailstones of underwater radio static - if it can be imagined, it can be made - which eventually have a kind of sandblasting effect - you find yourself comfortable and smooth within the great blanket of noise.

Oversize wind chimes disturb this revery, the sax comes back. Somehow this all only serves to heighten the sense of relaxation as it all combines and resolves itself into the foamy waves lapping at an ocean shore.

A successful experiment in how to combine the most disparate of elements into something beautiful.

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