Duo TENGGER make music that seems worthy of Seefeel comparisons, or even Cluster ones. The stuff on SKY, the South Korean/Japanese couple's new effort, is airy and transcendent in a fashion. I suppose it depends on when/where/how you listen to this what effect this record will have upon you too.
Epic-length opener "Blue" is atmospheric, veering slowly between tones, keyboard notes, sounds, and blips-and-bleeps. It's a lively in a weird way, but also a journey. The group's name means "a vast expanse of sky" in Mongolian, and that seems to describe the pieces here. Elsewhere, "Atmosphere" stands out as a highlight of SKY thanks to the warm drums and cooing vocals which guide this one in its path forward. That track has a different kind of momentum from the rippling waves of keyboards on "Celeste", another elegant gem here.
Itta and Marqido, the South Korean/Japanese couple who make these sounds, cultivate a little mystery about TENGGER. And that is further reason that this stuff seems so special, even though some of it is very much like New Age in the late Eighties. The sounds here, so light that they threaten to just float away, are certainly soothing, and this is a record that's hard to not like even if you're only going to play it to relax. Still, I think there's no harm in that, and fans of old Harold Budd or Suzanne Cianni sides, or more recent Seefeel efforts will find SKY an album worth loving.
SKY by TENGGER is out on July 10 via Guruguru Brain.
[Photo: TENGGER]