Helm – Chemical Flowers

Despite the odd directionless patch on Chemical Flowers, Luke Younger has added another solid record to his already imposing body of work

Album Review by Joe Creely | 17 May 2019
  • Helm – Chemical Flowers
Album title: Chemical Flowers
Artist: Helm
Label: PAN
Release date: 17 May

Helm, aka Luke Younger, has developed into one of the most interesting artists operating at the point where sound art meets drone and certain aspects of noise. Continuing his drift away from the stark electronics of 2012's Impossible Symmetry into increasingly acoustic territories, Chemical Flowers manages to contain some of his warmest instrumentation and queasiest soundscapes, often in the same song.

Lead single I Knew You Would Respond manages to combine piano that could be from one of Nick Cave’s sinister mock-southern numbers and swooning whirls of strings into a constantly shifting mass of sauntering malevolence. Halfway through, the discordant string drone that has lain beneath the whole arrangement seems to swallow the rest of the instruments whole before spitting them out more ragged and loose for the remainder of the track. It's during such stretches of complete dynamic shift that the record really shines. Lizard in Fear and Toxic Racecourse both share a similar sense of mounting panic, the latter in particular building from metallic squeaks over an airy drone into skittering jagged strings and a ghostly wail to astonishing, overwhelming effect.

However, for as many tunes that feel dynamic in their constant morphing there are a good few that never quite find their way beyond a bunch of interesting noises. It's the album's longer tracks, Leave Them All Behind and You Are the Database, which never really build into anything, something only exacerbated by the constantly shifting soundscapes of the other tracks. The evocative quality and inventiveness of the sounds being used never drops; they just sometimes feel they are being left to wander a space rather than marshalled in any direction.

Helm continues to develop his sound, each record moving into spaces he's yet to touch, and it becomes increasingly apparent he's one of the great manipulators of space and weight we have. Despite the odd directionless patch on Chemical Flowers he's added another solid record to his already imposing body of work.

Listen to: I Knew You Would Respond, Toxic Racecourse, Capital Crisis (New City Loop)

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