Excerpt: “Generated using analogue synths, tape machines, old cassettes, computer, and toys, the lo-fi ambient style Hamill presents on the album is considerably more sophisticated in conception than what one would expect from one so young. Chagrin’s richly detailed landscapes threaten to recede from view when played at mid-volume but assert themselves more strongly when heard through headphones. Textural sounds are magnified and musical elements are filtered through dense blankets, rendering them corroded and industrial in character. The album’s thirteen pieces are typically unassuming, retiring settings that on melodic terms aren’t leagues removed from Eno’s ambient material… Like B&W photographs of bucolic scenery growing progressively fainter over time, Chagrin’s shimmering vistas resonate as memory traces that often seem on the verge of vanishing.”

Textura

“Chagrin is the best album of 2008 that I totally failed to mention at the time, and one of my favourite ambient albums ever, full stop.”

Fractionals

Excerpt: “Hamill, AKA RL/VL, is thankfully too young to understand the sadie-masie crawl supposedly required of minimalists, and whenever his small, melodic textures threaten to disappear they always return calmly, in themes and droves and memorable parts, from two minute intros to extended ponderings. With its somewhat cynical title, it’s a surprise that Chagrin is so sweet, evoking erotic sighs and moans heard off in the distance rather than one-bedroom alienation in a city hostel or something… The underlying hook throughout the whole is that you can feel the spare alienation melting off every track, which become warmer and warmer as the thing wisps along at a floe pace… And it never stops evoking, which is how you could tell there was youth in it without even knowing Hamill’s only 18. The imagination’s too wild and unrefined to sleep.”

Resident Advisor

Excerpt: “RL/VL is 18-year-old, Belfast-based Jack Hamill. His debut album on Hidden Shoal is brilliant. There are obvious stylistic influences – late ’70s Eno at the pinnacle of those – but Chagrin has enough to stand on its own as one of the best examples of ambience that I have heard for a long time. The first thing that stands out is the amount of recording residue that is ingrained in the music…  the whole point of this music is the quiet meshing of vague, indiscreet sounds. Another feature are those ‘musical’ sounds. They are some of the most acrid and corroded I have ever heard, without Hamill ever resorting to distortion or bitcrushing… The best description I can think of for this music is that it sounds like the aural equivalent of a long disused wall. Its layers of paint and decades of history are now exposed by weather, its usefulness has long since departed, yet it stands as an almost silent testament to vast amounts of information that require forensic observation to uncover. Chagrin is a peaceful, still, beautiful testament to post-industrial decay.”

Cyclic Defrost