Upstairs Recordings are a little label from Vancouver. Every year they bring out a couple of albums, all of which in their own ways have been pretty special. By "in their own way" i mean in a rather ambient, electronica, (ugh) chilled out way. However don't misread that as boring; they're not about making lift soundtracks.
Gel-Sol is one of their newest signings and and IZ is his second album. It's quite a daring album; it has no beats, which often makes this sort of thing like listening to birds churping alongside a dripping stream on a summers day, and nothing else. For an hour. This really isn't that. Strings, Synths, Pads, little voices and thousands of electronic murmurs populate IZ, in an approach that reminds me of classical music, except this is classical music that has benefited from all the technological leaps and bleeps we've heard with electronic synthesis, although still having a natural, organic feel. Each song, well more soundscape is very carefully constructed and often mesmerising, I'm aching to use words like symphonic to describe this, but it's not classical, but it's certainly learnt some lessons from the genre.
This isn't music to listen to before you go out, but when you get home it'd be a brilliant accompaniment to the sun rising or other after dark antics. Oh and if you're one of those people who likes walking about watching the world go by with a musical soundtrack, then you're in for a treat.
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