All is bathed in deep red. Pure light. An orb emerges like sunrise. An enveloping sound then evokes a gentle dawn. Simple, but with fizzing synths and shimmering keys that arpeggiate through. Next, we are underwater as it bubbles woozily. It feels like the start of life itself.
Nature comparisons are often overused when describing electronic music, but this set is so pure that it is the only comparison. It is elemental. Loscil has remarked upon this himself before. That his music exists on a spectrum that ranges from the natural to the industrial. “Colours of Air”, a collaboration with Lawrence English perfectly encapsulates that spectrum. Even in the way it was constructed, as it used a 132-year-old pipe organ that was then manipulated with electronics.
Loscil and Lawrence English take to the stage clad in black and bathed in light like 2 audio monks. Loscil favouring a simple utilitarian black shirt and English ensconced in a black futuristic jacket that masks the entire lower half of his face.
The set begins gently with “Cyan” and “Aqua”. It evokes the beauty and self-generative natural world with its accompanying sunrise backdrop. There is an ethereal synth punctuated by keys that sound like raindrops pattering. Audience in awe. They play with the ordering of the album. “Violet” follows with an insistent industrial synth flutter underpinned by a ringing gong and ascending keys.