Concentric Reviewed by Blake William

If you were to only listen to the record without reading too much into it, you would probably assume that Summer of Glaciers is a 5-piece band, milking San Francisco's post-rock fan boys and being the obvious choice to open for God Is An Astronaut when they spring up on tour. You'd probably think they rehearse like crazy in order to pull off this material live without slipping up. With its massive layers of sound and carefully integrated guitar parts, this would be a safe assumption to make.

But you'd be wrong. Summer of Glaciers is a one-man-band. Ryan Wasterlain, who looks like your company's IT guy, goes on stage with an understated demeanor, adorned with a Gibson guitar and more complex machinery than most guitar players would ever want to keep track of. Using a drum machine, a mixing console, and a heavy amount of computer software, Ryan performs each guitar part, manipulates it after the fact, and then continues layering, all while maintaining a conventional progressive-rock structure to the music without ever sounding like he's compensating somehow. The slightest mistake could wreck a reasonable portion of the set, and with a metronome in his ear piece, he maintains patience and perseverance throughout the performance.

This brings us back around to Concentric, his latest record released through SF collective Ascender Descender records. The record features a sharp production and sounds impossible to pull off live through the method I just described. The use of drum machine works out nicely as it doesn't do much impersonation of real drums, but rather relies on it's own digital personality. The guitars roll in and out with razor sharp hooks at every turn, sometimes kicking 3 of them up at once, then descending into stuttering noise. It also doesn't hinder to too many of the “post-rock” stereotypes that linger around these days, by maintaining quick paced tempos, rarely staying in place for too long, and bringing a well directed energy that makes it into get-on-the-freeway-and-do-90 music.

It's hard to pick stand out tracks from the album, since most of it is daisy chained together to flow as one dynamic prog-rock epic. Although never meandering, you're hard pressed to find an obvious end to anything on the record. There is one obvious track however in Touching Down, featuring Emil Rapstine on guest vocals. His performance almost sounds like a more Americanized take on Dead Can Dance, and lends desert imagery and a slight psychedelic feel to the juxtaposing futuristic musical foundation in place by Wasterlain. The production efforts on his voice also have more of a lo-fi sound amidst the ultra-clarity of the instruments, giving his voice a bit of a surreal presence. As it sweeps to its chorus toward the center, it is quite epic.

This track is followed by the album's eerie closer, Ceremonial Ghosts, which carefully moves out of a simple arpeggio into an eerie keyboard percussion piece, then shifts gears all at once to a quiet chugging guitar. It in a way stands as a dark reflection of the album's first 9 tracks, setting the sun on the journey.

Concentric has been one of my main walkman albums of late. Summer of Glaciers is presently on tour (dates listed below), check them out if you can. Due to Bandcamp's very liberal sharing policy, you can listen to the player below, and if you so enjoy it, follow it to put money in Mr Wasterlain's tank by buying a copy.


Reviewed by Blake William

The Silent Ballet Review of "Concentric"

It is quite remarkable what one person can accomplish with a little time, motivation, and a background in playing with hardcore bands. Ryan Wasterlain, after moving beyond his hardcore roots, spent a year working on Concentric, hoping to create a record that expresses his musical ideas beyond set genres and methods. What results is a blending of guitar-driven post-rock melodies with ambient, glitchy electronics that weave around each other, allowing deep ambience to be torn apart by rich and complex guitar lines.

“Burn Rebuild Repeat” begins with a rather driving line of plucked guitars that are delayed and offset. The guitars are subsequently overtaken by a heart monitor put through a few choice filters to continually build an uneasy tension. The constant yet hyperactive beeps act as an anchor for the first half of the song until drums and bass mosey in to relieve the tension. An anthem melody proclaims its presence and opens a conduit for a striking release from the pulsing beep. However, the beep finds its way back into the fold and overpowers the sound to drive the song to completion.

Simple, repetitive power chords drive “City of Eternal Youth” forward while glitchy beats and mixed up synths round out the sound, hinting at a 65daysofstatic allusion. One starts to sense the hardcore influences beginning to surface at this point. Song names like “Burn Rebuild Repeat,” “City of Eternal Youth," “Entrench Us,” and “Ceremonial Ghosts” conjure images that surely hearken hardcore elements and hint at some doom-core trying to reach out. Powerful and layered guitar lines that hit the beat with vigor strike a strong hardcore note and add a unique life to the album. Quiet, clean guitars wander around the sonic plane and search for something more while chopped up beats lead them along until more power chords come in to steal the guitar away and unleash “Ceremonial Ghosts."

A variety of timbres are the key elements to Concentric. Sounds are constantly being altered, filtered, delayed, tweaked, chopped up, and made new with innumerable techniques. Classic glitch beats break up soothing dueling guitars while widely sought after guitar tones give shredding cred, all while expressing a deft compositional skill. Surprise vocals on the haunting “Touching Down” ensure that Summer of Glaciers is always one or two steps above the bar. This variety of timbres is the glue that holds together the disparate yet intriguing compositions of Concentric.

It is no wonder it took a year to complete Concentric. It is as if every note was toiled over, every turn of the gain knob deliberated, every patch auditioned and auditioned again until just the right tone/note/texture combination was accomplished. While perhaps some songs (“Cartography”) may not be quite as up to the same standard as others, there is always some element that manages to stand out. This is an excellent album of accessible experimentation and personal exploration/accomplishment.

by: The Silent Ballet: Greg Norte



The Rusty Blog

Summer Of Glaciers,  is the project of Ryan.This guy from San Fransico makes post-rock electronic music and is about to release his first full length album on Ascender Descender Records. He explains: “All the drums are programmed, I am looping and sampling live guitar and bringing in a lot of my influences from things like Burial, Ratatat, and Nosaj Thing.” Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it? And guess what, It is! The tracks he send us, are really nice! 

by: the Rusty Blog

NX35

Summer of Glaciers makes tracks marked by hypnotic themes that give way to step-lightly beats, a blend of space and rhythm that can only be served with the term “shoegroove.” Based in San Francisco, Ryan Wasterlain does the loop scientist thing onstage with a guitar, pedal board and a computer, stopping between tracks for no one, DJ-style. An expat of the hardcore scene, Wasterlain gained clout as a post-rock solo artist when “Migratory Birds” and “Plus Equal Minus” from his first EP, These Last Days, were picked up by the PBS series Roadtrip Nation.

NX35

URB Magazine Review

There's something epic about the music that Summer of Glaciers makes. Floating in limbo somewhere between electronica and rock, little more than an electric guitar and programmed drums provide the foundation for what they refer to as a "wordless story." Their music intriguingly unfolds with a slow build, and you begin to understand exactly what they mean. A story consists of a setup, a build to a climax, and then an ending that tapers it to a close. Summer of Glaciers weave suspenseful tales with sound.
by: Dan Vidal