Snow Palms Everything Ascending Vinyl EP Clear Colour 2019

A Everything Ascending
AA Circling (Arrangement for string quartet by Matt Dunkley)

Just over a year after the release of sophomore album Origin and Echo, Snow Palms return with a powerful two-track 12" - almost 18 minutes of music in total. A-side 'Everything Ascending' sees Snow Palms mainstay David Sheppard's signature glinting electronics and crystalline glockenspiels augmented by modular synths, tapes, piano and soaring vocal flights. Over ten minutes in length, this is an undulating, inexorably unfurling odyssey, oscillating seamlessly between passages of mesmeric electronic pulse, choral-enhanced minimalism and immersive, gamelan-like ambience. While there may be echoes of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Steve Reich and Midori Takada's Mkwaju Ensemble along the way, ultimately, 'Everything Ascending' proffers a uniquely rapturous sonic realm that is pure Snow Palms. AA-side 'Circling', meanwhile, is a bold orchestral reimagining of one of the highlights from Origin and Echo. A response to their own remix of 'Cycle 12' by fellow Village Green artist and renowned film music arranger/orchestrator Matt Dunkley, this is a brilliant repositioning of Snow Palms' music in the emotion-soaked cinematic idiom.