It continues to be a long, dark winter for new ambient music. Warm fuzzies are in short supply; doubt and discontent prevail. Think of Huerco S.’s lo-fi churn, Sarah Davachi’s stark drones, or Egyptrixx’s battered futurism. But there are some glorious summers hiding in Suzanne Kraft’s recent What You Get for Being Young and Brian Eno’s latest generative composition Reflection, which often evoked the stillness of an autumn evening. Also retreating from icy climes is the German duo Vermont, who've followed up their self-titled 2014 debut with an ambient album far warmer and more beautiful than its predecessor.
Vermont was an unexpected development from Danilo Plessow and Marcus Worgull, the two artists behind the project. Plessow made his name in the late ’00s making crisp, finely crafted house and disco as Motor City Drum Ensemble, while Worgull has spent the past dozen years refining his minimalist house epics for the Innervisions label. And while Kompakt has made a cottage industry out of ambient thanks to the label’s annual Pop Ambient compilations, Vermont sounded different. It grew out of a series of open-ended studio jams using a battery of vintage analog gear, which was both its biggest strength and weakness. The record sounded wonderful—a feast for the ears—but its cycling arpeggios and drifting pads occasionally lacked direction, often feeling less like the work of a single ensemble than a compilation by a number of artists who loved all things Can and kosmische.
On II, Plessow and Worgull are back behind iconic workhorses like the Moog Prodigy and Arp Odyssey, synthesizers renowned for their buttery tone. The results feel clearer this time; they’ve honed in on a narrower set of sounds across the length of the album, leading to a much more cohesive listen. Additionally, they’ve opted to go without any drums at all, and most tracks utilize just a three elements: bassline, midrange arpeggio, and contrapuntal leads weaving high overhead. Their spare arrangements and measured tempos allow each electronic voice to come into focus. While artfully layering simple lines and lavishing attention on timbre, panning, and legato, they stir up an enveloping sound that makes the most of its underlying waveforms.
Once again, krautrock’s ambient electronic strains remain their primary inspiration; the plucked guitar of “Norderney” invokes Manuel Göttsching’s Inventions for Electric Guitar; airy tracks like “Dschuna” and “Gebirge” draw inspiration from Cluster and Brian Eno. Looking further afield, the burnished, detuned tones of “Chemtrails” recall Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II. And in “Ki-Bou,” a riff inspired by Larry Heard’s bright, agile basslines amplifies the music’s field of vision. Mostly, though, these aren't stylistic exercises but carefully distilled mood pieces. In “Hallo von der Anderen Seite,” a rippling synthesizer melody wraps circles around a plucked mbira, and given the music’s fanciful qualities, it’s easy to imagine it as an animated still life, or a conversation between potted plants. “Wenik”—named after the birch rods that sauna-goers use to stimulate the circulation—suggests two colored liquids mixing together in slow motion.
Though the average track length hovers around the four-minute mark, many of these sequences could, like most ambient music, go on indefinitely. But Vermont have figured out how to make these comparatively short, sketch-like pieces work for them. They stretch out just long enough to draw you in and wrap you up in their atmospheres, but they never wear out their welcome. Like most kosmische musicians, Vermont dream big—but never at the expense of the small, tactile details at their fingertips.
