Like Dust of the Balance Reviews

The Milk Factory
The Wire
NME
International DJ
Powerstrip Circus
The Silent Ballet

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The Milk Factory

“Hailing from Newcastle, Chris Leary has been distilling his fine melodic electronica with parsimony over the years. While he first began making a name for himself after winning a remix competition held by Global Goon back in 2002, his first album, A Midsummer Nice Dream, was published two years later on London’s recently resurrected Toytronic. After the demise of the label that same year, Ochre reappeared on Scotland’s Benbecula in 2006 with his second album, Lemodie, on which Leary combined electronic and acoustic into a particularly ambitious soundtrack. Since, he has worked on an installation for the AV Festival in Newcastle, and has released two further EPs.

The fruit of three years of recordings, Like Dust Of The Balance represents a considerable progression from Lemodie. While Leary continues to explore the possibilities of bringing electronic and acoustic instrumentation together, there is on this album, even more so than on its predecessor, a great symbiosis of sound and ambience. Leary constantly blurs the boundaries between the two sources and works at amalgamating them into a perfectly coherent whole. He is aided in this endeavour by long time Plaid collaborator Benet Walsh, who appears on four tracks here, providing in turn percussions, bass, banjo, guitars, violin or mandolin. Walsh’s contribution is perhaps not entirely coincidental. Indeed, Leary’s music shares with that of Plaid a taste for vibrant soundscapes and melodies. But, while the duo’s music has become rather stale and too predictable in the last few years, that of Leary is expending greatly and has gained in confidence and scope. This is perhaps best showcased on the wonderfully poetic Napolese, on which Walsh provides delicate touches of violin and mandolin while Leary creates a lyrical world around these, and later, on the luxuriant and Plaid-esque Lunar Suburbia.

On Raido, Walsh first creates evocative Spanish guitar arabesques over Leary’s layered electronics and beats, then adds a sequenced plucked electric guitar reminiscent for a moment of early Ash Ra Tempel. Pieces like Dustlands, on which Walsh provides percussions, banjo and bass, or later Hang Garden, are much more restrained and voluntarily kept to a less ambitious scope, giving the more elaborate and ambitious compositions interesting counterpoints. The album concludes with another Leary/Walsh collaboration, A Great Wave, on which the latter seems to take a back step, and solo piece The Balance, which once again gives Leary the opportunity to juxtapose electronic and acoustic to create a delicate dreamy moment.

With Like Dust Of The Balance, Chris Leary continues to affirm his vision and define his sound. His increasingly ambitious records denote a desire to explore new territories with every new project, while still retaining the essence of his early work. Benet Walsh’s contributions add to the expressive nature of the record and take Leary’s earlier experiments to a different level. 4.7/5″

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The Wire

“Scotland’s dogged, idiosyncratic and often delightful Benbecula label has been quietly going about its business for a decade now, describing an increasingly confident trajectory that’s expanding on the melodic electronica of their early years to embrace occasional doses of folk, jazz and the downright weird.

And on his first outing for more than three years, Ochre’s Chris Leary reveals a similarly expanded vision — Like Dust Of The Balance benefits hugely from the multi-instrumental contributions of sometime Plaid collaborator Benet Walsh. ‘Raido’ softens the spasmodic impact of Leary’s habitually skittering rhythmic patterns by folding in warm, rippling Spanish guitars and sighing violins worthy of John Barry. ‘Napolese’ is a spare waltz constructed from staccato ukulele and tumbling harps — if it weren’t for the stark digital clarity of the recording, it could almost have sprung from some long-lost Fellini soundtrack. It’s not all soft-centred romance, though — The Balance reverts to the squelchy synths, quirky beats and sci-fi chimes of Ochre’s early Toytronic outings to complete an album of considerable charm.” (August 2009)

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NME

“IDM cult master Christopher Leary, the man behind Ochre, is back with a new offering of his dreamy ambience. It’s full of shimmering electronics, crunchy, crispy beats and sweeping melancholic melodies that recall classic electronic stars such as Boards Of Canada. Leary uses sounds with great care and, while the scope remains very much in the down-tempo electronic territories – analogue tones and glitchy beats – snatches of classical orchestration are peppered throughout, helping to create rich cinematic soundscapes. The Spanish guitar and flute of ‘Raido’ and the delicate silky strings and harp that adorn ‘Napolese’ sound off-kilter, whimsically carnivalesque and almost old world-y.”

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International DJ

“A discordant harp flurries as we enter Ochre’s somnambulant world once more. Skittering beats twinkle their way in to the mix, flirting on the right side of challenging, and it feels like only yesterday we sank into 2006’s ‘Lemodie’. We ease gracefully into ‘Whispers’, a moment that documents the time when Radiohead met aliens, and venture forth into the vaguely haunting ‘Dustlands’. Soft, dreamlike and loaded with a fragile funk, Ochre hasn’t swayed too far away from the ever-winding road he began paving with ‘A Midsummer Nice Dream’, conjuring up sensations of Vangelis and Fink alike. Highlights include the crackly folk fusion of ‘Raido’ and the otherworldly wonk of ‘Pteron’. A pastoral remedy for the most hectic of souls.”

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Powerstrip Circus

“Ochre is the electronic music project of Christopher Leary, Newcastle resident who first made a name for himself winning remix contests for Global Goon and the Zelda soundtrack. Since then Ochre has continued to imbue the traditions of IDM with a warm widescreen beauty and a taste for orchestral sounds.

On Ochre’s new album Like Dust of the Balance Chris and guest collaborator Benet Walsh (Plaid, Leila) extend the Ochre sound further into sonic space. Throughout, traditions of the modern era are woven together with more historic material, incorporating bells, mallets, and strings with synth percussion. “Raido” features classical guitar in a song seemingly influenced by the traditions of Spain. “Hang Garden” uses spacious string hits and coaxes Aphex Twin -style beats from an unsuspecting steel drum. “A Great Wave” is a microcosm of this album, featuring more familiar electronic elements and a handful of surprise turns over its five-minute span. The album swells with optimism but the chord progressions suggest enough introspection and contemplation to avoid feeling saccharine. It’s easy to sink into this luminous world they have created.”