Tristan Coleman – Still Life with Sound EP

This EP is Tristan Coleman’s debut release, but the Melbourne-based singer/composer/multi-instrumentalist already evinces an unusual breadth of vision. When his plaintive vocals drift in over syncopated dub textures on the opening track, he instantly evokes the haunting, melancholy qualities of Arthur Russell or Climate of Hunter-era Scott Walker; as with those artists, there’s a compelling sense of dreamy abstraction here.

Elsewhere, Still Life with Sound’s sonic adventurousness – a result of Coleman’s collaborative work with traditional Indonesian musicians, coupled with a love of cosmic jazz and electronica – gives the EP a fragmented quality, which undermines its coherence somewhat. The levels of imaginativeness, intricacy and diversity on display here, however, bode well for Coleman’s future full-length releases.