Ensemble Economique
Radiate Through You
Radiate Through You delivers on its title, exuding a nuanced catharsis, alternately tempestuous and transcendent, forlorn but undefeated. Vaulted heavens of interwoven electronics ebb into hushed dirges of skeletal percussion and candlelit guitar. Roiling noise seethes, swells, and subsides as an ashen string arrangement rises in the mix, keening a somber, circular elegy, as if overtaken by memory on a long walk alone. Two key guest appearances lend the album even more dynamism and drama: the first by Barcelona synthesist Alexander Molero on the questing, celestial opener, "Music Is Life," the second by New Zealand psychic sisters Purple Pilgrims on the devastating finale, "Blue Hour." Both showcase impressive shades of Pyles finesse as producer and muse, sparking his collaborators to new heights. Whether taken as expressionist memorial, therapeutic song cycle, or something more ambiguous, Radiate Through You stands as a pensive, passionate statement by an enduring light of the West Coast canon, drawn from "a deep, special place of giant emotions, feelings.