MWVM, Rotations (Silber Records)

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"It´s Easy To Be Miserable", one of the track titles of this album claims quite truthfully, so why not exert yourself and be happy instead? On his debut album, Michael Walton from Durham in the UK proves to be a joyful, if restrained, guitar-teaser, stroking and molding it with delay pedals and other electric acoutrements, looping, seeking his own blissful ambience.

The soaring opener is a thermal-borne survey of the wonders of the sunlit landscape below. Watson strives for clarity of sound, as opposed to many colleagues who prize the overwhelming swarm of buzz and distortion. Some of these ten tracks, ranging from three to twelve minutes, are linear and narrative, others more static and ambient. There is a great variety of texture and permutation, though the mood remains constantly uplifting; even several forays into relative darkness, like "Negative Pole", eventually emerge into the light. The album ends with a beatific coda, promising to be "Never Constant".

This is thoughtful introversion that travels well, because it is based on the expression of a fellow human being´s "within".

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