How To Dress Well – ‘I Am Toward You’ album review: a dynamic musical ecosystem
THE SKINNY: Brian Eno once said, “Music is about finding a shared space that we can all inhabit together.” Often thinking of his music in terms of an ecosystem or a world, his pioneering ambient music is a full landscape with soaring sky, ground land and moving creators. As How To Dress Well builds a world on I Am Toward You, he appears as a successful student of that philosophy.
Who knows whether Tom Krell likes or follows Brian Eno? But on his fifth album, and the first after an extended hiatus, he creates an ambient and atmospheric world that often feels more like a living, breathing thing than any captured and frozen recording. On the opener, ‘New Confusion’, each new movement in the music, changing between sounds and tempos, feels like a new detail being added. Like in Genesis One, when God set about creating everything, one by one, Krell does the same, adding new textures and expanding the world. By the time it reaches ‘Crypt Sustain’, the roaring guitar coming in and out feels like the heaving breath of a beast, adding far more life to a type of music that could easily have become overblown or overproduced.
The element of godliness or spirituality sticks around as a thread through the songs. While the lyrics are often buried and hard to make out under the instrument, the snippets you get, paired with the energy of the songs, are heavy with ritual and worship. ‘Nothingprayer’ and ‘The Only True Joy On Earth’ feel like electronic hymns, repeating the same words over and over like a chant as the music swirls around them.
However, Krell forever feels marred by his earlier releases. His first albums, especially 2016’s Care, 2014’s What Is This Love? and 2012’s Total Loss are absolute treasure troves of interesting production-based genre-merging alternative music. They’re lyrically moving and musically dynamic but leave plenty of space for quietness. Even though I Am Toward You claims to be more transcendental and born out of a period of extended silence and meditation, it doesn’t leave that space for listeners. In some places, it lacks a bit of breathing room as the world he builds is so vast, intricate and busy with textures and colours. For fans of those earlier albums and Krell’s more lyrically-led music, this isn’t the return to the original form they’re looking for.
But when the spiritual air of the words is matched with the living energy of the music, there’s a sense of real glory about the record that’s fascinatingly beautiful. It’s at once so huge, yet so microscopic, looking at small details and the tightest introspection, yet handling it on this vast, godly level. The play between intimacy and atmosphere lends to a listen that’s ambient but genuinely interesting enough to keep your attention.
For fans of: Escaping a silent meditation retreat to make lots and lots of noise.
A concluding comment from a vicar: “God is a DJ, and this is on heavy rotation.”
I Am Toward You track-by-track
Release Date: May 10th | Producer: Tom Krell | Label: Sargent House
‘New Confusion’: How To Dress Well welcomes you in with a track that is atmospheric but dynamic enough to be interesting, more akin to an entire ecosystem than just a sky. [3.5/5]
‘Contingency/Necessity (Modality Of Fate)’: As his vocals move to the front of the mix, the world of the instrumental gets louder to match. His lyrics cut through, delivering a monologue on memory, leaving the music to buzz and burst like a brain ignited by remembering. [3.5/5]
‘Crypt Sustain’: A roaring guitar rips to life, bringing in a whole new texture. As it floats in and out, there’s something breathlike to it. As it just keeps building and building to a glitchy climax, that breath is smothered, panicked and desperately emotive. [4/5]
‘No Light (feat. Anarthia DLT)’: The change in the track is like the sun coming out, in spite of the name. ‘No Light’ would be a catchy little indie number, but with the layering of sounds over his vocals, it’s given the same dynamic difficulty as the rest. [3/5]
‘Nothingprayer’: “Holding onto nothing /I pray for it to leave me,” Tom Krell starts, sounding like a church choir or a desperate man on his knees. The repeated lyrics over and over are beautifully hymn-like, offering a moment of meditation before the track flows through various movements like miracles being performed. [4/5]
‘On It and Around It’: More akin to a spoken word piece than a song, this track is a moving consideration on grief, love and the various ways we’re a tapestry of the two. A reminder of his powerful lyrical pen, it’s nice to have a moment to hear the words. [4/5]
‘Song in the Middle’: Aptly titled for what is literally the song in the middle of the album. Krell drops all words for a solely instrumental interlude. Growing from nothing but nature noises into full production, it’s a nice enough filler that adds to the world of the album. [3/5]
‘Gas Station Against Blackened Hillside’: Offering less than everything that’s come before, this track falls into filler territory as well, saved only by a strong beat. [2.5/5]
‘A Faint Glow Through a Window of Thin Bone (That’s How My Fate is Shown)’: This one feels closest to all of How To Dress Well’s earlier eras, especially his 2014 record What Is This Heart? But sadly, it’s not quite as gripping as the emotions are lost. [2.5/5]
‘The Only True Joy On Earth’: “The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own false selves” – that’s the only lyric here. Sung like a mantra or a religious text, the repetition once again steps back into a spiritual space for another interlude. [3/5]
‘A Secret Within the Voice’: On the final track, Krell seems to return to the idea of an ecosystem, wrapping it all up with another intricately layered and carefully crafted piece full of beauty, life and movement. [4/5]
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