Life at the End of the World

(Originally released in 2010 via n5MD) On "Life at the End of the World," Hummel's 6th subtractiveLAD album, percussive elements, pretense of genre, and theoretical pollutants that could cloud the candid nature of this current ripple in Hummel's pond are a thing of the past. The result is one of subtractiveLAD's most lush yet threadbare albums to date. Eno could be referenced, although Hummel now features the guitar as a primary instrument. Further, "Life at the End of the World" is not all ambient movements and variations on a theme. At the three quarters point the album takes a tense turn with passages that would not be out of place on albums from Ben Frost or Jasper TX. One wonders what is really at the end of Hummel's world? "Life at the End of the World" is Hummel's catharsis, anxiety, and joy. We can hear that he is at a crossroads in his life and subsequently has created his largest most majestic ripple in the pond yet. CDs of this album can be purchased from n5MD (limited stock): n5md.com/discography/173/Life-At-The-End-Of-The-World "Hummel allows his music to unravel, to tell its story and find its own way. Always heavy with deep emotive qualities, each track flows, undulates and drifts along with steady ease, textures and layers slowly interacting, coming in and out of the sound space, changing the mood as the emphasis shifts." - Igloo Magazine "So what's life like at the end of the world for Stephen Hummel? On the evidence of his sixth subtractiveLAD album, it's apparently no cataclysmic melt-down but rather an oasis of celestial calm." - Textura