Patient – Vintage (CD)

This recording by Patient, aka Simon Wood, is one of the most quietly disarming and utterly captivating debuts in recent memory. Electronic music is at its most inviting when the ear partakes of new sounds, new textures, new colors; what the cochlea understands, the mind then works to fill in the blanks. Well, this sumptuous feast for those of us with the most selective of palettes never fails to disappoint. Woods has stumbled onto something wonderful here, a slice of pastoral, blissfully-besieged electronica that nurtures many an antecedent but remains nevertheless its own particular animal. Close your eyes and you can easily conjure up strands of Boards of Canada, some of K. Leimer’s equally summery landscapes, the many-splendored things harbored within Taylor Deupree and his 12k label’s bucolic brethren, some of the tinkertoy tronix spun out from Arovane, Morr Music, and their ilk. Yes, it’s part and parcel of all the above and yet nothing like them. How can such a conundrum exist? “Arbor Low” puts that concept to the test, its windswept hush, elaborative choirs, woodblock percussion, and pillowy atmosphere steering your mental ships well beyond any stylistic dire straits. “Hartshead Pike” posits more diverse cartographical oceans and delicate ecosystems, held aloft on little fluffy clouds of gentle purrs, cushiony burrs, and tones of fur. A bit later on, the gregarious rhythmic vortices of “Rev” wake us up from our reverie thanks to some spidery webs of electro-motive and sequencer-dancing, like a symphony of dot-matrix printers doing the strand. Utterly delicious ear candy, the gift that keeps on giving.