ASC-Truth Be Told (2x12"LP)
$29.00
Label: Silent Season
Listen: Link
Year (release): 2023
Genre, primary: Dark ambient
Genre, secondary: Ambient
Catalog number: SSCD15
Country of origin: USA
There's a stillness to Clements' ambient composition that matches Silent Season's preoccupation with nature. These tracks are like field recordings from some imaginary world. There are rustles here and there, and implacable distant noises—carefully built ecosystems are contained within each one.
Complex but rarely dense, Truth Be Told puts a lot of different ideas into its slowly simmering pot. It's a wide-ranging style Clements has already shown off with his podcasts, which connect post-punk and '80s pop with electronic music. His love for groups like Cocteau Twins is obvious on Truth Be Told, and it comes through in subtle ways—the watery echo of pads on "Some Other Life," or the shimmering post-rock of "Machinery Of Light." Discerning moments like these keep the album from congealing into beatless mush. When Truth Be Told is playing, it becomes your surroundings, rather than merely soundtrack them.