“The internet is a wonderful thing. I had no idea that western Australia had a rich experimental music scene. With my northern European prejudice I probably assumed that all too brief and rather damp summers were a necessary precondition for musical innovation. But thanks to the web, my prejudices can be confounded.

Gilded are Matt Rösner and Adam Trainer, both notable composers and performers in the aforementioned scene around Perth, who collaborate together on this album for the first time. Terrane was mostly recorded in the beach community at Myalup, although some of the piano which features strongly throughout the record was recorded in Perth in a room specifically conditioned to provide the optimum environment for the instrument.

When thinking of great experimental music (if you were a child of the Seventies and Eighties at least) I immediately think of Mixmaster Morris or Aphex Twin’s electronica or Philip Glass and Steve Reichat the more orchestral end of the spectrum. Gilded’s music pitches somewhere in the middle, and manages to create soundscapes that, while they are certainly minimal in approach, are nonetheless powerfully evocative. I use the term soundscapes specifically here, as the album title (a geological term apparently*) is highly appropriate because what their music communicates is determinedly about places and environments. The restrained use of repetitions, layered with gradual, patient progressions evoke images of wild and remote places.

The rich texture of their music is partly a function of the care taken in their arrangements, as well as the performance and recording. What adds so much to these compositions is the incredible resonance that they elicit from their acoustic instruments. While piano and guitar feature significantly, the instrumentation is also diverse enough to provide a highly original sound palette. Creating these combinations must have taken immense care and great deal of experimentation, and the overall effect works so well as to produce music that invites a deeply immersive experience.

The eclectic instrumentation is augmented by the use of field recordings. These serve to further strengthen the extent to which the pieces transport you to distant landscapes. Their application is subtle, for example adding a sense of heat shimmer to the scenes that Trainer and Rösner paint with their instruments.

As the tracks build, you may find yourself yearning for more progression in the compositions. The music moves you – but perhaps you want it to move further. However, this is the point of Terrane; it is music which describes places and panoramas – movement is not required and its simplicity is part of its appeal. Fundamentally, what makes this record stand out is the beauty that is achieved through its diverse arrangements. This gives it a richness which encourages listeners to explore the layers and textures, which pleases both aesthetically and through its invention. This music is original and well made, the like of which I have not heard before. – Jim Bennett”

-FREQ

“The suffused and vaguely crepuscolar opening on gentle piano strokes and thin chinks of the initial “Velar” and the charmingly rustic twining of string saw, warm deep tones, accordion and banjo flowerheads, a dainty percussive nixer on the following “String And Stone” embarks listeners on the musical universe of Terrane, whose name comes from a geological term to describe a fragment of a tectonic plate which get “sutured” (normally after a process of subduction) to crust lying on another plate, by Gilded, a West Australian duo by experimental musicians Matt Roesner, whose sonic researches, focused on field recordings and guitars, partially flowed into labels like Room40, Apestaartje, 12K, Meupe and Miatera, and Adam Trainer, one of the founding member of Perth-based post-rock outfit Radarmaker. Ideally lying on the boundaries between the styles by Cinematic Orchestra, Greg Haines, Piano Interrupted and similar august satellites orbiting around conglomerates of minimalism, visionary lyricism and ambient, the sound they carefully mould on this lovely release constantly oscillates between melodic suspensions, emotional tension and pastoral idylls, which sounds like rushing from heaven-given creative sparks (“Dew Cloud”, “Straight Crest”, “Tyne”), earthly dampers (“Road Movie”, “Expanded Contract”), bucolic effusions (“Cluttered Room”, “Moth Food”), which evokes a constant feasting by tender sensibilities with contingent halts. This is undoubtedly a recommendable listening for dreamlike personal odysseys. “

- Chain D.L.K.

“Two old hands, post-rock deconstructor Adam Trainer and ambient guru Matt Rosner, have come together to form something new as Gilded. Whilst clearly not setting out to reinvent the wheel of experimental music, the merging of their two sympathetic skill sets – Trainer’s versatility as a musician and Rosner’s perceptive ear for texture and detail – have staked out a previously undefined sector of the map.

Trainer has described this record as having a “summer” vibe to it, and many parts of it certainly radiate warmth; an atmosphere augmented by closely-observed field recordings of insects clicking in the pulsating heat. The science of applying such supplementary sound effects is done in a delicate way that accents, rather than distracts from, the vital essence of the many carefully arranged instruments. Although, on Expand/Contract the groaning of the steel beams of a warehouse structure warping as the temperature changes arguably take centre stage over the chiming piano and vapour trail of barely-there vocals.

As complex as the final product is, there’s never any clutter. The value of silence, or at least near silence, is not forgotten as each element is allowed ample space in which to breathe. As a whole, Terrane is finely balanced and reveals something new with each listen. What’s most impressive though, is that despite the long gestation and complex configuration of elements, the music always sounds fresh. Recorded over two summers, one might have expected the odd, overly studio-processed flat spot. That never happens on a journey into sound that ripples with life at every turn.”

- Drum Media

I’m no geologist, but thanks to a bit of search-engine scholarship I can now tell you that a “terrane” is a land-mass phenomenon where a tectonic plate breaks off and fuses with another, leaving a fault-line where the two bits of Earth-crust have “sutured.” The metaphorical inference to be made here – that collaborators Adam Trainer and Matt Rosner’s respective approaches/oeuvres are comparable to tectonic plates, monolithic, timeless, and joined at last – might seem a touch self-important if not for a few facts. (A) Adam and Matt are well-known to be top dudes, tirelessly honing their crafts for years with no time for chest-puffing; (B) their approaches/oevres actually DO feel somehow monolithic and timeless, detached from the mundanities of modern life, alluding to something more cosmic or ancient, and © well, it’s just a darned album title isn’t it, and it would be a bit rough to draw assumptions about the fellers’ personalities thereupon.

For a more rigorous glimpse into the inner workings of the Trainer/Rosner collective consciousness, cue up their debut long-player. You will be handsomely rewarded. “Terrane” is one of the most simultaneously accessible and uncompromising experimental records to come out of Perth – perhaps ever. The pair’s shared penchant for slow-burn textural development, distant gestural melody and ambient drifting is adapted and forged into a record that is remarkably concise and consistently engaging – you might even call it muscular.

Opener “Velar” is all glassy piano, sparse percussion and ghostly bow strokes, but immediately “String and Stone” reworks similar textures into decisive 4/4, a quiet, sanguine momentum – dance music for sunbeams. “Tyne,” similarly, relies on repetition, and nods towards Trainer’s pop and post-rock roots. Other tracks – like “Road Movie,” “Straight Crest,” and “Moth Food,” allow more for these textures to float, unbridled by tempo, foregrounding the freeform interplay of campfire crackle and dawntime drone. Yet never does the record drag; my indie-pop-adoring teenage sister likes it; no less is it bound to please the most avid aficionados of experimental soundscaping. Gilded have achieved that special alchemy – transcending “genre” with a record that will appeal to many, sacrificing none of its unique, esoteric quality in the process.

Cool Perth Nights