Low Chimes – Illumine

Indie Rock | Alternative Folk

78%

Sometimes in life you just hear the right album at the right time. Such was the case with Low Chimes’ debut album; the perfect cure to a stressful week. What makes it such a rejuvenating listen is that maintains a delicate balance between being relaxing, and being engaging. Just take any track, say ‘Blood Orange’, and with its calming melodies and its rise and fall, you can easily drift away to a world of your own. Focus in on it however and you start to pick up on the sublime bass tones, the skittering drum work, the understated indie guitar and Marianne Parrish’s angelic vocals reminiscent of Joni Mitchell and Leslie Feist. The track serves as a microcosm of the album as a whole. Both atmospheric and experimental, it almost exists in two different planes of reality.

The drumming on ‘Sulphur Silk’ is as intricate as it is effortless, while ‘Dust Will Blow’ ventures into full-blown jazz territory. ‘Electric Bloom’ carries some faint far Eastern vibes and the opening of ‘Taming Trance’ is just as hypnotic and ethereal as its name suggests, but grows as it progresses into glorious technicolour like a lotus in bloom. To get the full measure of Illumine you need to sit down and devote some time to listen to it as a whole, and to do that you need to be in the right frame of mind, but when both of those boxes are ticked the record is a sublime listen. I’m curious how they can keep the intriguing balance shown here on future releases but still evolve and progress as a band, but this is regardless an excellent start to their career. Low Chimes have delivered a real refreshing record that’s well worth a few spins!