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Low Tide Digitals II is a collection of hums and drones, criss-crossed by an assortment of textural effects. Archetti and Wiget’s sound marries effectively with the project’s title, evoking images of mudflats over which skies gradually shift from mordant greys to glowing silvers and sunlit blues. With this in mind, the percussive pitter patters that occasionally mark Stuck 17 ineluctably suggest the pecking and scurrying of sandpipers, while the music’s pendulous chimes hint at low clouds gliding slowly overhead. The addition of rich, reverberant bass points in the direction, oddly, of a pastoral deconstruction of drum’n’bass. The dereliction of Stuck 18’s plucked strings and the protesting scrape of Wiget’s cello suggest Ry Cooder’s soundtrack to Paris Texas rerecorded by Tom Waits. At other times Low Tide Digitals’ bleakness evokes memories of Simon Fisher Turner’s accompaniment to Derek Jarman’s film, Caravaggio. This is beautiful, lonely music that hovers on the boundaries of improvisation and ambience.

Colin Buttimer

August 2005

Published by Jazzwise magazine