Robin Guthrie releases a new album of filmic, intricate instrumental music Carousel, the follow up to the critically acclaimed instrumental albums Continental and Imperial.
We have a few words to describe Carousel – uplifting, summery, opulent, dreamlike, exquisite, moving – with Guthrie quietly coaxing beauty out of layers of echoes and always inventive soundscaping.
Guthrie has been a massive influence on everyone from My Bloody Valentine through to Antony and the Johnsons, new 4AD Act The Big Pink and M83. In recent years he's worked with School Of Seven Bells, John Foxx (on this year's Mirrorball album, described by Q Magazine as 'full of myriad charms . . . encompassing the best of both artists'), Ulrich Schnauss and Harold Budd (with whom he made two albums in 2007, Before The Day Breaks and After The Night Falls).
Given the quality of Carousel, it's not surprising that as a guitarist and producer, though most people know about his work as the Cocteau Twins principal sound designer, his defining role in the now vogue-ishly fashionable early '90s shoegazing scene with his productions for the likes of Lush and Chapterhouse shouldn't go un-noticed.
Guthrie is also developing an impressive reputation as a composer of film soundtracks and in the visual arts. He's scored two movies – Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin and the Dany Saadia directed 3:19 – for both of which he released a soundtrack album, and has performed extensively with Lumière, and its recently premiered successor Galerie, both films that he has created as backdrops for his atmospheric, hypnotic guitar-based instrumental concerts.
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