Vital – Grouper
In a year full of wonderful ambient records, none were as astonishing as The Man Who Died in His Boat. It gives voice to the deep structures of the universe: its vastness, the empty reaches of space. But also its material resonances: the living and breathing impossibility of life. These songs are hazy windows into an alternate reality where humans never left the savannahs and the rest of the world continued on its own. Her words are indistinct, unknowable, sinking below the surface even before they are sung. They ask you to listen for the spaces in between the seemingly whole. The point is not to attack the false precision of modernity, but simply reflect it back upon itself. In doing so we become aware of the endless waves of uncertainty and doubt that lie beneath them.
If this all sounds too abstract or distant, it is absolutely not. These are some of the most emotionally present songs you are ever likely to hear. They speak of loneliness and deep longing. The hiss of the tape, the ethereality of a human voice, the blurrily plucked guitar notes, the background vibrations of atoms singing, all of these things live together here in a kind of discordant harmony so beautiful that I can’t ever hope to describe it.