Earlier this year, Kel McKeown regained the rights to an old Kelpe record (2010’s Margins 12”) and reissued it on his Bandcamp page with a revealing note: “This is what I used to sound like.”
No kidding. While that EP revolves around neon-lit rhythms and laser-cut dance loops, Run With the Floating, Weightless Stillness — McKeown’s first proper LP in five years — is a leap of faith that lands in a far more laid-back, melancholic space. Or as he puts it, “it’s an album of ambient electronic piano and analog synth-based home listening music.”
Building upon his background as a composer, richly arranged songs like “All the Way Round” and “Meridian Palindrome” sound like a sepia-toned film score in search of the right scenes. Adding to the album’s autumnal warmth is violinist Galina Juritz; her string parts wrap right around McKeown’s raw field recordings and shimmering, polyphonic synths on several pieces, turning the two musicians into a tightly wound orchestra.
“This album is something I’ve been slowly and patiently working on for the last 20 months,” explains McKeown, “and it’s been so therapeutic to make and actually enjoyable for me to listen back to the various drafts of it over the last six months.”
Lucky for us, it’s also therapeutic to listen to….
