***** LAURI-DAG TÜÜR – AFTER IT RAINED FOR 2 MILLION YEARS 

Good electronic ambient music is not heard all that often these days. All the more welcome, then, is Lauri-Dag Tüür’s new digital album, released in March—his fourth—which is available on most online music platforms. Although previously known as a guitarist, Lauri-Dag also has academic training in electronic music at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Electronics nevertheless provide the expressive centre of gravity on this album, though electric guitar also appears on several tracks.

Lauri-Dag’s new album, lasting almost an hour, consists of six compositions. Five develop at considerable length, while “Interlude”, a little over a minute long, is a miniature solo-guitar interlude with reflective harmonies, still served in an electronic “sauce”.

If we were to choose three terms that best characterise the album as a whole, they might be ambient, minimalist repetition and a boundless electronic soundscape. Large reverberant spaces give this music a sense of expansiveness that can sometimes feel almost cosmic. By contrast, its systems of minimalist repetition are sonically clear and concrete, bringing the music “back down to earth”. They seem to act as a creatively disciplining force.

In discussing the music’s style, it is difficult to draw comparisons with other ambient composers around the world: Lauri-Dag’s musical voice is so distinctive and individual. Yet seek and you shall find! For example, the opening of the title track, “After It Rained for 2 Million Years”, reminded this reviewer in its mood of a well-known Pink Floyd song.

The motoric—or mechanical—quality of the intense sequencer repetitions towards the end of “Hypersonic Stardust” also brought to mind the sound of Jan Hammer’s “Star Cycle” (compare the titles!), which was also heard as theme music in the 1980s crime series “Miami Vice”. I must emphasise, however, that these parallels are both arbitrary and subjective: they concern the associations and moods evoked more than the musical material itself.

One further point about style: although this is neither a rock nor a pop album, Lauri-Dag also draws on a vocabulary familiar from pop music in “Warm Yellow”. This is evident both in its gentle, listener-friendly harmonic progressions and in the singing, ballad-like guitar line, with its emotional “passion and longing”.

If I were to single anything out, the album’s first two compositions spoke to me most strongly, particularly “Shadow River”, with its meditative quality and intriguing blending of tonalities. Its electronic soundscape seemed to evoke cosmic expanses. Especially compelling, too, was the ten-minute “Haunting Solstice”, where the unfolding fields of sound are eventually joined by a massive progressive-rock-style bass part and electronic drums. Here, too, we hear layers of minimalist repetition, but they are constantly changing and pulse in fascinating ways.

A thoroughly rewarding listen, then, for anyone drawn to electronic ambient music—and not only them!

Released to the public in June, Lauri-Dag Tüür’s second full-length album encompasses his entire palette and makes little secret of his influences. Sounds of nature, long cascades of soft synthesisers, emphatically melodic guitar solos, electronic arpeggios emerging from nowhere… A listener could hardly be blamed for briefly mistaking “Waves of Silent Whispers”, heard in passing, for a David Gilmour project or the next noteworthy release by Richard Skelton or Nils Frahm. Yet it never feels like mere imitation. Tüür calmly follows his own path, letting the music speak for itself and inviting us into a forty-five-minute meditation. It visits both the minimalist, richly textured corners of neoclassical music and the more vividly roaring heights of progressive rock. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

Frankly, it is surprising that Lauri-Dag Tüür remains a relatively little-known solo artist in Estonia. I would hesitate to describe him as swimming against the current: he does not seek confrontation within the local scene. The whole idea of a scene seems to hold little attraction for him, let alone marketing his work or otherwise seeking an audience. Through his film and theatre music, he has already established a strong signature, and anyone curious enough to explore further will certainly find his music in one form or another. Those fortunate enough to see and hear him live will remember the experience with pleasure for a long time. It is a pity that such opportunities do not arise more often. And it is a pity that Tüür’s second album has not been released in a physical format. The material certainly deserves it.

***** LAURI-DAG TÜÜR – WAVES OF SILENT WHISPERS (SELF-RELEASED – 2022)

“Waves Of Silent Whispers” is Lauri-Dag Tüür’s second ambient and IDM album, after “Polar Night Jet” in 2020. The new one landed in my inbox already in June 2022. Though not forgotten, it spent most of the year underneath the ever-increasing pile of unfinished business. Instead of white nights in the summer, the release became a companion for the shortest days of the year. Nevertheless, compelling three tracks, in total clocking at over 43 minutes, by the academically trained musician from Estonia have the substance to age well.

Tüür’s sonic imagery can be called as ‘volatile ambient’ where the compositions express different moods and intensity and refraining from linear approach. In the title track “Waves Of Silent Whispers”, first there is a thin, long line as an expression of utter minimalism. It could be the horizon where calm sea and blue sky come together. Then a moderate breeze emerges, assisted by droning sounds and solo by a lonesome guitar player. After sinking into refreshing waves, a flock of robotic seagulls piloting over the shores of beloved Hiiumaa herald stormier times, where bold bass and flashing synths are showing the way out from the meditative zone.

“Fading Into Bright Green” commences with a birdwatcher theme, with little chirping creatures hording the seaside. Then a complex arrangement of various instruments brings ahead semi-ambient track, suddenly joined by a rock band on tour. As expected, “Deep Dive” goes on underwater sightseeing with kaleidoscopic melodies amplified by organ sounds, for a holy and festive atmosphere. Darker textures arrive when an object arching over the seabed looks like Captain Nemo’s cathedral, being in fact a centuries-old shipwreck, to which a long guitar solo is playing hallelujah.

https://terminal313.net/2023/01/lauri-dag-tuur-waves-of-silent-whispers.html

You have said that creating a longer musical form is important to you: one that draws the listener in and does not let go until the end. What do you create for listeners through your work, and what do you want to convey?

Music helps me describe a world with which I sometimes seem to establish a kind of contact. It is a more expansive world that reveals itself at moments when I see wonder around me. I do not have the ability to convey it in words, so music is my means of expression. A longer form offers the opportunity to venture deeper into this abstract kind of place.

How did “Polar Night Jet” come about, and what story does it tell?

Much of “Polar Night Jet” came into being ten years ago. “Arcus Cloud” was the first piece I made after I stopped playing in bands. I remember spending a couple of weeks alone on Hiiumaa one autumn. As I walked along the beaches, a form shaped by autumn storms began to emerge, and I needed to translate it into sound. The initial impulse for “Polar Night Jet”, on the other hand, was Gaspar Noé’s “Enter the Void”, which had just reached cinemas. When I began putting together an album of newer material, I realised that two older pieces and a slightly more recent one, “Metamorphosis”, formed a coherent whole, and that I should first shape them into an album. I would rather not put into words what story it tells. First, because I cannot, and second, because I think each listener creates their own personal narrative, and my music helps them enter it. I have always felt that music belongs to the listener. What matters more than what I was thinking is where the music takes the listener.

What affected you about “Enter the Void”? What other films have captivated you through their imagery or music?

Its atmosphere worked for me. I remember remaining under the film’s spell for several days. Among more recent experiences, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” comes to mind, as does Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s “A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness”. I particularly liked the latter’s bold approach to form. This is something that interests me greatly in music, too: arriving somewhere you could never have imagined.

Although the album’s pieces were written ten years ago, it still feels contemporary. To what extent does the zeitgeist guide you when you create music?

It does not—at least not consciously. As a child, I developed a habit of living more in my imagined world than in the real one, and perhaps that is why I felt little need to relate to the collective. I seem to observe society from the sidelines rather than being part of it. I feel present when I am alone in nature. As for musical trends, I can say, half-jokingly, that a couple of months ago I happened to see an international record-sales chart and realised I was seeing the names at the top for the first time.

Do you feel your work has changed over the years?

It is difficult to say. With each new piece, I seem to start again from the beginning, with something new.

In 2014, you gave a forest concert at the Plektrum Festival, incorporating forest sounds. “Polar Night Jet” also suggests a relationship with nature. To what extent does nature dictate your music today?

I would not say that nature dictates my music, but being in nature gives me a clearer sense of my place in the world. What is important becomes easier to distinguish from what is not. This provides fertile ground for creative work. In an urban environment, I tend to lose touch with myself a little, and finding an inspired state is more difficult.

You have also composed music for films, television series, documentaries, exhibitions and theatre productions. How do you usually decide which projects to accept?

I must admit that I have not had to turn down many projects. Presumably, I have been offered an appropriate number of interesting things. I have also been fortunate to work with people who trusted me and often gave me complete creative freedom. I am very grateful to them for that.

You mentioned that where your music takes the listener matters to you. Can you recall a concert or piece of music that created a world entirely of its own?

Every concert probably creates a world of its own. The question is how strongly that world speaks to a particular listener. The first that comes to mind is the Arild Andersen Trio’s 2009 concert at the House of the Blackheads. Its energy was astounding, which is why it remains such a vivid memory.

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The second tune “Polar Night Jet” arrives in a similarly pensive manner, when a melancholic guitar player is slowly passing an abandoned gas station at Madrugada Eterna. The scenery is distorted with hydraulic rhythms emerging from the ambush, turning the title track into a nasty churn. For a while abruptly barred by a commemorative wall of lost souls, dancing to oblivion resumes in the haze of Frankfurt’s late EBM and trance temple Dorian Gray. The first half of “Metamorphosis” is an experimental challenge with crawling drones, shredded rhythms and voice effects straight from a nightmare factory. The rest commences with a renegade view on symphonic orchestra, an array of instruments exposed to a dark ambient mindset, before the rule of avian wildlife is introduced.

Lauri-Dag Tüür is an Estonian composer and musician, remarkably a graduate in the field of electronic music and composition at the Estonian Academy of Music. He has played guitar in the Estonian groups Loom, Luarvik Luarvik and Melmachas, and performed live since 2010. He has written scores for several films and stage plays. “Polar Night Jet” is his first album and in a way it starts from ‘the beginning’, as the tracks were written about ten years ago. For sure a very promising start with a wealth of expressive sounds.