American player Eric Angelo Bessel here with his solo LP Visitation (LORE CITY MUSIC LCM 8804). Bessel also records as Lore City with the singer Laura Mariposa Williams, and together they’ve produced minimal dark-wave type music with thematic leanings towards alchemy, benign magick, and astral forces. If there’s any unifying theme to the watery instrumental music on Visitation, I haven’t managed to catch it yet; the track titles allude vaguely to undescribed things that are very far away, or are hidden and secret, or which turn out to be pure deceptions. A whole album of tunes about mirages, perhaps. Although the word Visitation might suggest an encounter with alien beings, my guess is probably very wide of the mark. Bessel produces a not-unpleasant sound with his washes and layers, very fitting for those wispy ethereal moments when you just want to bask in the atmosphere and stare off into the middle distance. (09/03/2023)
