Peter Wright: Red Lion

Peter Wright is a Kiwi musician living in London. On Red Lion, he’s created a slowly-evolving drone-scape, built up over field recordings (i.e. the sounds you hear when you’re walking around in the city). Not to disparage the potential of field recordings per se, it’s just that they are so buried that it is often difficult to hear much in the music other than this dreary background of continued noise. “Approaching Low from the West” approaches slowly from silence, building up little layers of sound; at about the six minute mark the mood becomes shimmering and tranquil with an upward motif that warps and repeats, though it’s hardly a melody. “Infection”, the final track, is the most immediately rewarding (too little, too late), with its old-woman sample lending a certain heft to the otherwise thin, washed-out background. The title track is a showcase for Wright’s goal: bird calls and an intense buzzing that strongly evokes City Life. But all the ire drains away and it’s back to the constant wash of sound, a somewhat dreary experience that doesn’t really offer the listener much to grab onto. Lost time may be the goal here; and that requires a certain frame of mind.