I'm old enough to remember when instrumental music got more respect, when ambient and instrumental records that weren't jazz or classical didn't get shoved into the New Age section. And while there were some good things that got labeled New Age -- Michael Hedges, Suzanne Cianni -- there was lots more that was simply just fluff. What wasn't fluff was stuff like Harold Budd, Jon Hassell, Brian and Roger Eno, and Daniel Lanois. Those cats made wordless stuff that felt every bit as visionary as the material from prog or art-rock artists in decades earlier.
Now, coming out of Maryland we find Egret Zero, a duo with exactly the right approach to this sort of thing. Clearly influenced by the artists I've named, the duo has put out a few EP's recently, with the latest, I Want to Have Faith, being their best yet. The tunes here are simple, beguiling, haunting, and naturalistic in their appeal. "Chiba Prefecture" undulates out, pulses of sound creating a warm audio bath, while the excellent "Three More Snakes" finds Wm. Wolfgang Allen's guitar alternating between light flashes of Eighties Bill Nelson and a sort of subdued Fripp-y vibe. The electronic hum behind the guitar adds the momentum here, while a set of more overt electronic textures from Kel Smith does a similar thing on the elegant "Two Links to Two Lynx". The epic "I Came to You" recalls Hassell for me, or Material even, with the spoken-word snippets, and bongos, giving this the kind of vibe we'd have found on a Fourth World release. And "Blind Formation" takes that sort of thing and deconstructs it a bit more.
All of the Egret Zero releases to date have been interesting to me, but this one seems the most compelling so far. A neat blend of influences, with none getting too much obvious play, lets these two musicians create a fairly unique sound, which is atmospheric, spacious, and enveloping. Fans of any of the acts I've name-checked above, or those who prefer the instrumental half of Gone to Earth (1986) should find a lot to love here.
I Want to Have Faith is out now.