Best of 2009 Pt. VIII: Ambivalence Avenue by Bibio

Like a lot of the best releases on Warp (one of my favorite record companies), Ambivalence Avenue is an album that rewards careful listening, especially in headphones. So much so that I didn't quite realize what was so great about it until I donned my own pair of Sennheisers and sat down to do nothing else but listen. Just one example: Fire Ant's stuttery, spaced-out middle section's cavernous excitement can really only be appreciated on a good pair of 'phones.

On the other hand, the title track, with its entrancing 3/4 rhythm and wonderful instrumental refrain, can be appreciated on any kind of sound system. Said refrain features the kind of cheery, unpretentious melody that one hardly seems to hear anymore. It almost reminds me of old Jethro Tull or some other 60's English folk-rock.

Jealous of Roses continues this exploration of the past with what sounds like late 60's funk à la Sly Stone: funky wah-wah guitars and falsetto vocals (mountainous gobs of spring reverb on the latter). All The Flowers shifts gears again, this time into some nice acoustic fingerpicking - I'm just guessing here but I think this is a pitch-shifted guitar and not some weird instrument with a sopranino range. Anyway, the sound is bright and bell-like, which seems to be a sound Bibio (aka Stephen Wilkinson, from somewhere in West Midlands, England) enjoys and may suggest a nostalgic looking-back to childhood.

Sugarette starts off with a high-pitched bell-like synth, a looped arpeggio that seems to linger after it disappears. Soon synth bleeps appear that sound straight out of Super Mario Bros. and take over the track - perhaps a reminiscence of a childhood spent playing Nintendo games (the aforementioned Fire Ant also features a recording of children playing some type of ancient video game). S'vive has as its foundation what sounds like a sample from a wind-up musicbox, all chimes and innocence.

There is a charming sense of wide-eyed wonder that pervades pretty much every minute of Ambivalence Avenue. Although in Jealous of Roses he chides, "You speak of love as a symptom of conformity," for the most part Wilkinson seems content simply to observe, record and report, rather than cast judgment, as in my favorite lyric moment on the album (from the track Haikuesque): "When she laughs/The piano in the hall/Plays a quiet note." This song also exemplifies another interesting feature of this album: many of the songs seem to "end" before the track itself does. In this case, after the song fades out, a recording of a man repeating a short prayer ("The Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me") plays over ambient synths, ending after a minute and fading out with the sound of tolling church bells. More reminders of childhood, perhaps?

But more than the innocence, more than the fun changes of sound and playing-with of genre, it's Bibio's sense of melody that gets me. He never seems to get bogged down in mere ambience or sounds and beats. There's always a strong melodic hook at play, no matter how weird things get. Even in Dwrcan, which features some of the album's most complex layering of beats and sounds, there are melodies that create lift and move the track along. So that when the glitchy, Autechre-ish beats appear about halfway through, you're already floating along on a cushion of airy, flowing notes and chords. Eventually the beats disappear and the last minute is a slow melody for ambient strings that fades out gradually. When all is silent, you may be tempted to play the whole album again. It's a temptation to which I've given in many times these past few weeks.