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Review: 'HAMMOCK'
'Everything And Nothing'   

-  Label: 'Hammock Music'
-  Genre: 'Ambient' -  Release Date: '6th May 2016'

Our Rating:
The cover image of this album depicts bright, hazy lights on what might either be a temple or a fairground carousel. This begs the question as to whether we should we expect the music contained within to be contemplative or hedonistic.

The clue lies in the band's name; let's face it, hammocks are essentially designed for lounging on rather than as party accessories.

Hammock (the band) are guitarists Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson and the fact that their 7th album was recorded in a remote mountain cabin in Asheville, North Carolina is further proof that they are not seeking to create a festive atmosphere.

They are from Nashville but their ambient / neoclassical sound is far removed from the country & western vibes you habitually associate with music city. Their previous work has mostly been without drums or vocals and has met with praise for qualities of floaty, dreamlike ambience.

Admirers include Ricky Gervais and Jónsi and while the opening track (Turn Away And Return) sounds very like Sigur Rós, the album as a whole contains a range of other influences.

Clarity, for instance, is the very next track and has a more dynamic rock feel that might even be described as anthemic if there were any vocals.

Everything And Nothing is a slight departure from the duo's previous output in that it contains both percussion and singing though not on all the tracks. Moreover, the voices heard on six of the sixteen tracks are used more as instruments than to convey any lyrical profundities since you can only hear random lines or else the words are indiscernible.

The words to We Were So Young consist of the title and very little else while on Dissonance the title and the repeated refrain "There's nothing wrong with me" suggests a dramatic story but the exact details are left to our imagination.

The masculine voices are those of Byrd and Thompson while Byrd's wife Christine does the 'angelic' female vocals, most prominently on Unspoken.

A general air of floatiness therefore still abounds as one might anticipate from scanning the track listing and seeing titles like She Was In The Field Counting Stars and Wasted, We Stared At The Ceiling.

I take these labels to signify that this is the kind of music which is ideally suited for those vacant times in the day when nothing much is happening. This means that how you respond to its sonic drift depends on whether you're a glass half-empty or half-full kind of person.

To put it another way, your enjoyment will be greater if you regard unfilled moments as being rich in possibilities or starved of meaning.

At 76 minutes, the length of this album feels a tad excessive but if you are so inclined, there's more than enough blissed out beauty here to satisfy star gazers and ceiling starers alike.

Hammock's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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HAMMOCK - Everything And Nothing