Similes

So it’s a little strange hearing Eluvium sing at first. Not because Matthew Cooper can’t carry a tune; it\'s because he’s spent so many years sculpting icy instrumental pieces. While that ambient Eno angle is still in place on *Similes*, Cooper’s hushed melodies unfold like hazy storm clouds that never quite crack open. Moody but never menacing, these are songs you fall asleep to, from the spiraling piano progressions of “In Culmination” to the soothing drone tones of “Bending Dream” and “Nightmare 5.” And then there’s “Cease to Know,” an 11-minute closer that’s frozen in time and a fitting foil to the forest-clearing slowcore of “Leaves Eclipse the Light.” Listen long enough, and you might just float away along with its flickering chords. 

The long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed Copia, Eluvium takes a courageous creative leap with Similes, an 8-song album featuring three key musical elements previously uncharted by Eluvium: percussion, a verse-chorus song structure, and singing. For a celebrated experimental musician, it was just about the bravest and scariest direction to go. In this way, Similes is the most truly experimental Eluvium album yet, and also the most accessible. Written, performed and recorded as always by Matthew Cooper in his own Watership Sounds studio, Similes marries Eluvium's trademark dream-like aura with Cooper's unique, laconic vocals, akin to an especially contemplative Ian Curtis with trace reflections of Magnetic Fields and Brian Eno. It is the most daring - and ultimately most rewarding - work of Eluvium's impressive and prolific career.

Accomplished ambient artist expands his sound to include delicate new elements-- soft percussion, his own voice-- creating distant pop songs.

Eluvium - Similes review: It can be compared to this or that, true, but it doesn't fair well when placed next to Copia.