Small Craft on a Milk Sea - Warp
FILTER Grade: 87%
By Ken Scrudato on November 23, 2010
Another resplendent nonpareil from Eno (and a collaborative improvisation with Leo Abraham and Jon Hopkins), this is veritably a spontaneous soundtrack to an inferential film, one that is essentially revealed in the imagination of the listener. And, oh, the things you just may imagine. The opening trio of eerie but fragile compositions might vaguely evoke someone waking dazed and alone on a desolate beach; they’re followed by another trois conveying all the dystopian frenzy of a car chase across a bleak Ballardian cityscape. And, as one might expect from the maestro, it all closes with a piece titled “Late Anthropocene,” which suggests both hope for—and yet a smoldering anxiety with—these, our unsettling modern times. Because tidy endings, after all, are for suckers.