Album Review: Minotaur Shock – It All Levels Out

A chance encounter with an old school friend provided the inspiration for It All Levels Out, the 10th album from the Bristolian electronic producer Minotaur Shock, aka David Edwards. The original plan for the album was to make something a bit looser than usual; more ambient but still melodic, like the 90s music that made a big impression on Edwards, such as Global Communication and Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol 2. But as it turned out, this random reconnection took the album in a different direction — not so much musically, but more in the inspiration and mood.

It All Levels Out is the result, a hopeful meditation on getting older. This is Edwards’s most personal and reflective album yet and arguably his strongest, the closest to a pure ambient record he has made. The nine tracks ebb and flow perfectly, with echoes of the environmental music of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Surround; Steve Reich’s minimalist masterpiece Six Marimbas; the murky ambience of West Mineral Limited; the fluid new age vibes of Visible Cloaks; and even the meditative post-rock of Bark Psychosis.

“I think there’s a point that you get to in life where you finally get to know yourself,” explains Edwards. “It doesn’t mean that you stop worrying and overthinking, but you kind of don’t care as much. It’s easier to work out what’s important — or maybe it’s just easier to know what isn’t.” It All Levels Out, the title track and album opener, with its pensive piano loops that cede to forceful chords and playful melodies, is about “that realisation, the relief it brings, and the nagging feeling that you probably wasted a shitload of time caring about and chasing things that didn’t really matter.”

Check Out: Title Track – It All Levels Out

Now back to that serendipitous meeting… “We were close at school, but kind of drifted apart and, for whatever reason, life got in the way of staying in touch,” Edwards explains. “We got chatting and it was lovely. I confessed that his dad introduced me to mayonnaise and he told me that my dad’s driving used to terrify him. We’re now the age our dads were back then. He makes amazing clay pots.” It is one of Matt’s pots that provides the cover image for the album, while the resulting track combines flurries of synthetic violins with warm, tonally resolute cascades of melody.

The oscillating keys and glassy marimbas of ‘Memory Crates’ was inspired by a weekend spent tidying the garage, sorting through “crates of CDs, promos, LPs, minidiscs, broken old musical instruments, wires for forgotten devices”. It was probably a good time to get rid of it, but Edwards has a “notoriously bad memory”, so decided to keep it all. “I’m pretty sure I’m on a one-way street to losing it totally. So I kept all the stuff on the off chance that it will trigger some long lost memories when I’m in assisted care or whatever.”

‘Molding Physical Air’ is Edwards’s tribute to the “really talented people [I know] who make beautiful physical things out of nothing… or who can fix things, or grow things. I’m bad at all of that, so I wanted to make some music that captured that feeling of gathering stuff that doesn’t exist and bending it into something else.”

‘Deflecting’ is “about avoidance… It’s basically all linked to swimming in the soup of being Gen X, when you feel self-conscious about doing stuff that you suspect you might be a bit old for. But you’re not ready to give it up yet.”

The original blueprint for the record can be heard in the album closer, ‘With Me?’, a spacey, drifting electronic symphony, beautiful and haunting in equal measures with echoes of Global Communication’s masterpiece 76:14. It was originally going to be the first track on the album, “but then the rest of the tracks turned out differently. This one was a bit dark, while the rest of the tracks are quite hopeful. So It was nice to end on a downer.”

Verdict: A collection of beautifully delicate instrumentals, wonderful collages of sound that weave an enchanting spell of ambient laid back lushness. The album has the perfect blend of deep and ethereal arrangements, all in the key of serenity and playfulness, which evoke a meditative state of peace and well being. Musically well crafted, the tacks are infused with warmth and one is in no doubt, that each comes from a heartfelt and sincere place. Bliss

Track List:

1. It All Levels Out
2. Memory Crates
3. Recognise You Anywhere
4. Moral Progress
5. Brother
6. Molding Physical Air
7. Deflecting
8. Launching the Kids
9. With Me?

Out Now @ https://minotaurshock.bandcamp.com/album/it-all-levels-out & https://bytes.lnk.to/ItAllLevelsOut

All tracks written and produced by David Edwards. Mastered by Richard Pike (Deep Learning/PVT/Salmon Universe)