Geographically, Sculptures, the latest album from Switzerland-based electronic musician Rupert Lally, can be grouped together with his 2022 album Wanderweg. Both albums are sonic evocations of the area around where Lally lives, between Bremgarten and Wohlen. Through walks and rambles with his dog, the area has proven to be a major source of inspiration for Lally, something that gave Wanderweg a gentle, naturalistic sound that leaned into a pastoral, folk music dimension.

Stylistically, Sculptures exists in a very different space to Wanderweg. Inspired by sculptures in the area around his home, these tracks have a darker, more mysterious, more turbulent edge that links the album to his recent works of fiction (particularly last year’s Teenage Wildlife). A number of these tracks feature Lally playing electric guitar in a style which is filled with a jazzy inquisitiveness and occasionally Latin-inflected sense of freedom. That interplay between guitar and electronics is not remotely unfamiliar territory for Lally, but rarely has he used the combination in the way that he has with Sculptures.

There is a narrative quality to these pieces, which again connects to Lally’s novels. Except that here the story isn’t self-evident, but shrouded and secretive. It’s almost as if Lally composed these pieces while staring at the sculptures, feeling inspired by their construction, and constructing his own sonic response at the same time. Beyond interpreting the titles for ourselves, we can only imagine what that story is, and what was going through his mind as he composed these pieces.

‘Dwarf In The Mirror’ is one of the most engaging tracks in this collection. Beginning with slowly-forming spirals of ethereal sound, ‘Dwarf In The Mirror’ moves at a languid, dreamy pace, its brittle synth shards offsetting emotive guitar melodies. It fully occupies that zone of magical mystery that infiltrates many of the best moments here. ‘Big Shoes To Fill’ firmly places a spotlight on Lally’s guitar, subjected to an echo effect that gives the piece a gentle, questing vibe. The introduction of a quiet synth passage seems to encircle his guitar, flickering its way elusively between light and dark.

Lally has, for many years, worked as a sound designer for theatre. You hear that awareness of time, space and dramaturgy on ‘Hexenmusik’. It is a moment of pure texture, with layers of buzzing synths and unfurling, criss-crossing tones that together create brooding, turbulent atmospherics. Final track ‘The Burning Man’ begins with a similarly-structured sense of consciously oblique menace, before rapidly evolving into a stew of brittle, skeletal beats, off-kilter bass pulses and a dense web of restless electronics.

I’ve championed Lally’s creative works for many years, but his most recent sequence of albums have cemented Lally’s position as a master craftsman, one who is endlessly imaginative and continually searching for new things to be inspired by. Sculptures is thus both a departure from his many previous releases and also entirely in keeping with the spirit of adventure that has made his entire body of work so consistently engaging.

Sculptures by Rupert Lally is released February 9 2024 by Modern Aviation. Thanks to Will.

Words: Mat Smith

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