In a message to me accompanying a link to his new album, Switzerland-based electronic musician Rupert Lally cautioned that the collection was “VERY ambient.”

That sort of risk warning isn’t a problem for me. I’ve been listening to ambient music intently since the mid-1990s. I’ve always found it one of the most underrated, engaging genres of electronic music, and have always resisted the notion of it simply being sonic wallpaper. Neither is this unfamiliar territory for Lally, whose back catalogue is full of releases that offer the sort of weightless ephemerality that Multitudes floats upon.

The tools of Lally’s trade might be modular synths, but, for the most part, the tracks on Multitudes are informed by naturalistic sensibilities, with pieces named after wildernesses, rivers, beaches, woodlands and naturally-occurring phenomenon. Unlike the actual places that inspired Lally’s recent pastoral excursions through his local area (Wanderweg), these locations and events are entirely metaphorical, but they nonetheless highlight an artist completely at one with the natural world.

Lally is masterful composer of evocative melodies, and that’s evident here in spite of the tracks being constructed primarily from textural materials. One of the stand-out pieces, ‘Fjords’, might be presented under a drapery of intense reverb, but its core signifier is a sweeping, long-form melody that suggests an almost classical grandeur. The title track has a searching central refrain with a clean Fender Rhodes jazziness, held in place by the faintest trace of a rhythm. Elsewhere, the brief ‘Wasteland’ carries a sense of mournfulness and regret as it alights its attention upon an environment ravaged by the opposite of Lally’s respect for the natural world.

VERY ambient it maybe, but VERY good it also is. A beautiful, engaging, subtle and moving addition to Lally’s expansive catalogue.

Multitudes by Rupert Lally is released June 2 2023. rupertlally.bandcamp.com

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2023 Further.