part wild horses mane on both sides: pike/portent

Utterly stunning album from the long-running (and just-married) duo of Kelly Jayne Jones and Pascal Nichols, better known to the world as Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides. They've moved so far, now, from their Japanese-esque psychedelicised beginnings back in the mid-'00s where celebratory flute and drums cascaded into one another like competing tsunamis. Not that what they were doing back then wasn't already brilliant -- in fact, they heralded what felt, at the time, like it might be a whole new era of British drone (a movement that never really came to pass). It's just that, since then, they've become such masters of their craft that it's hard to feel anything but awe upon listening to Pike/Portent. For starters, they do less. In other words, they seem to be as obsessed nowadays with the space between sounds as they do with the sounds themselves. Resonance too. This record sounds like it was recorded in a cave by the ocean, it's as simple as that. Secondly, while it's still an exploration of the transitory potential of the relationship between the embellished trapezoid drum kit and the naked flute, it's just more interrelated, more dynamic, more alive. Jones, in particular, seems to have found the perfect spaces in which to interject complementary and/or jarring sounds (clanking pebbles, pouring water, electronics, etc.). It's almost impossible to consider the result in terms of improvisational music -- it's just so considered, so accomplished, so communicative. 140-gram vinyl. Limited edition of 250.