“As above perhaps so below.“
Adam Wiltzie has been active in the ambient music world for 30 years. Starting out in the mid-90s Austin music scene, where he is best remembered for founding Stars of the Lid with the late Brian McBride, he then moved to Belgium in the early 2000s, where his work continued through a wide range of collaborations (perhaps most famously The Dead Texan and A Winged Victory for the Sullen), each with its own distinct voice and all representing the ambient/drone/modern classical genres at their very best.
When his new solo album, Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal, arrived in my inbox, I was surprised to realise it was in fact his debut solo album. (He has released two soundtracks – 2016’s Salero and 2019’s American Woman – under his own name.)
Fans of Wiltzie’s work will recognise his trademark mix of strings, guitar drones, electronics and tongue-in-cheek track titles. I got to know his work during my student days, so perhaps you won’t be shocked to learn that, for me, Wiltzie’s music is best appreciated while fighting a losing battle with sleep. Staring out of the window into the darkness on the last train home. Nodding off in the back of a car on a long drive. Walking home late at night along empty, freezing streets. Falling asleep before you can make it to the end of the page of the clever-sounding book you took out of the library that’s going completely over your head. It’s less that Wiltzie’s music is restricted to a particular emotion or mood (it isn’t), and more that it all shares a very distinctive… well, for lack of a better word, vibe.
Anyway. Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal is all distinctly Wiltzian. The album has shades of The Dead Texan (“Tissue of Lies”), latter-day Stars of the Lid (“Pelagic Swells”) and A Winged Victory for the Sullen (“Dim Hopes”). But there’s also a quietness to parts of certain tracks (such on “Mexican Helium”, “We Were Vaporised” and “(Don’t go back to) Boogerville”), where the strings and drones are allowed to fizzle out to almost nothing. There’s a wonderful tenderness to these moments. A lot of drone music can reasonably be criticised as impersonal, but Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal feels like Adam Wiltzie’s most intimate work to date.
I have been listening to Wiltzie’s music for half my life. So for me, Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal feels like a welcome visit from an old friend. There aren’t any shocking surprises on this album, but then, that’s part of the joy of spending time with old friends, isn’t it?
7/10
Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal is out April 5th via Kranky and can be pre-ordered here.