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Dials by Adrian Carter

Fluid Audio's latest release is another high watermark for the label and not just one to be pigeon holed with the traditional 'downtempo' tags...read on.

I don’t get releases from Fluid Radio all that often but its always something to behold when they arrive. There’s an attention to detail that covers ever aspect of each release from the packaging right through to the listening experience itself. The latest release from The Moving Down Orchestra simply entitled ‘Dials’ is no exception.

Exquisitely packaged as always there’s a clean simplicity to the style of the imagery which compliments the tracks within. You might wonder why I’m going on about the external aspect but I think we’ve all forgotten just how integral things like sleeve art used to be when you picked up a release. In this modern age of throwaway file shares and digital bundles it takes a release like this to make you realise what we may have lost.

The EP itself comprises of four tracks, a suite if you will consisting of Spring : Hymn/Hymn, Summer : Keep Still, Autumn : Between Hands and Winter : Silhouette. Now normally I’d approach each track separately but in this case each piece seems to act as a seamless continuation of the other which is more than appropriate considering the titles.

Aurally these pieces have a wonderfully grand scale, with gentle piano melodies providing glacial leads for lush fluid backdrops of orchestration. There’s an unquestionable sense of melancholy to this body of work but its not done for cheap effect. In fact its often the gentle interspersion of electronics that weave in and out of the tracks that serve to ground the epic proportion of the music and darken the mood. Metaphorically I guess I could say its like almost watching a city’s boundaries expand into the wilderness and subsequently steal the natural habitat. I know, I know I’m not a fan of cliched comparisons but ‘Dials’ really did throw visual markers at me right through the listening experience.

Overall this is probably my first ‘must have’ recommend of 2010 and we all know that these days I don’t dole them out on a regular basis. Its a fragile beautiful collection of music that I can’t actually find fault with. Get it.

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