Last Light

***Last Light is the glorious confluence of the UK-based and Aotearoa / NZ born Dean Brown (Little Skull, Nova Scotia) and Ben Spiers (Glory Fckn Sun, Seen Through, Tea Dust)—names that might be familiar to anyone who has followed the post-Corpus Hermeticum school of hiss and klang as it's spread out across the world to coalesce in little pools here and there. Their album A Bridge Over The Lagoon is the latest stop on a trajectory set flowing out of small town Aotearoa, hastened by the fire lit by Le Jazz Non. Last Light shines differently from it's members' respective pasts—it is not the earth rending blaze of Glory Fckn Sun, nor the candlelight glow of Little Skull. There are hints of the burnt out star cinders of Total or the rumbling flow of Flies Inside The Sun, but with much more of a sense of optimism than those comparisons would imply. The first side is a travelogue of movements over which the spirit of Peter Stapleton hangs heavy—long rolls of low percussion creating fields over which the guitar crackles and hangs suspended, carving the air. Much is written about alienation and isolation as being foundational to the underground arts originating in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but A Bridge Over The Lagoon is a testament to optimism and connection. A testament to acceptance and patience. This is the sound of two bottom-of-the-worlders, now decades deep into their own respective sound rivers and hemispheres away from their homes striking a vein of triumphant unity again and again and again.