Album Review: T. Gowdy – ‘Trill Scan’: Inspired Early music and darkwave alchemy.

It was a question of time before Canadian producer/audio-visual artist T.Gowdy’s background filtered through to his engrossing electronic music and that time is now. Gowdy’s new album ‘Trill Scan’, his third for Constellation, with its ethereal vocal harmonics and sinuous acoustic instrumentation makes careful sonic connections with college years spent as a professional choral singer and classical guitarist. That might seem quite a leap for an acclaimed electronic musician with five albums of distinctly synthesised sounds behind him but Gowdy’s music has never rested in one place.

His Constellation debut in 2020 ‘Therapy with Colour’ marked the peak of his ambient phase, all petalled layers and hypnotic movement, whereas 2022’s ‘Miracles’ revelled in a techno informed dynamic which balanced rigour and rule breaking. Now with ‘Trill Scan’ Gowdy strikes out on another exploratory project which maps out an exceptionally different soundscape. Elements of Dark Folk, sacred music, electro goth and hauntology coupled with his established techno premises lead this music to places both other-worldly and strangely transformative.

The album’s foundation is laid early on with tunes which float on a shimmering choral expanse. Anonymous IV sets the recurrent tone, monastic voices, ecclesiastic harmonies drifting between hypnotic loop and incantation. It’s a theme that Gowdy opens out on the companion piece Anonymous V, where hovering song ghosts an ominous pulse, and one which he develops even further on the tense staccato driven Blest Age!. Such shorter tracks are more than brief interludes, they appear as intricate miniatures which zoom in on the essentials of Gowdy’s ‘Trill Scan’ vision. The slower paced Materiadiscipuli is the most striking, a John Tavener- esque canticle, reverential and minimalistic, its vocal / lute repeating pattern mesmeric and softly insistent through the synthesised shivers.

With such sensitive early music referencing on ‘Trill Scan’ Gowdy is making new alchemic connections in the dark folk/ electronic music cauldron. Including a re-imagined take of the late Renaissance/Baroque lutenist François Dufault’s magnificent Courante is a beautiful statement of intent, the restrained synth colours subtly tangential to Gowdy’s studied playing. Such electro-acoustic invention continues on the processional, post-rock sweep of Novus Lumen. Here Gowdy’s almost expressionless, hymnal vocal is upfront, concocting phrases with atmospheric insight. It’s haunting and hypnotic with an ominous tolling mid-section which swells into a GSYBE cataclysm.

The considered introduction of sculpted song dynamics and innovative electro-acoustic balance should propel ‘Trill Scan’ to wider acclaim. Tracks like the phaser pulsing Pentaarc has a melodic excitement and quivering tension about it which reminds you of that early-days Animal Collective thrill. Then there’s closing cut Strewn where the gathering momentum of an advancing beat and dripping synths take folktronica beyond the cosy to more earthy, shamanistic destination. “On the fourth of the month I came across a path” Gowdy begins in a near whisper, telling of a quest where his eyes “turned to metal” and “memories melted to metal” while magically avoiding any hint of Prog whimsy. This song feels authentic, in the PJ Harvey/ These New Puritans zone, with a mysterious majesty of its own.

Elsewhere on ‘Trill Scan’ there are clearer connectors with Gowdy’s established electronic, instrumental approach. Richmond Hill is a landscaping piece, music which scans outwards to a distant horizon. Multi-layered and intentionally dense, the track glistens with sound shards then glides from a celestial peak down to a deeper, urban-gothic subterrain. You catch whispers, a recurring bass mumble, whirring drill sounds and Gregorian chants amongst the white noise detritus of a Cortini meets Basinski communion. The techno kinetics of Gowdy’s last album also get recalled on the searing pent-up blast of Flit while the post rave /nu trance rush of Arislei Bone pumps insistently, pure, joyful and on an IDM continuum stretching back to the analogue-punk days of Rental and Leer.

Gowdy has always created music which allows room for imagination and this collection leads you to stunning, unexpected places. Night forests surround pristine future-scapes, lost rituals take on new meanings in the shifting, surreal world of ‘Trill Scan’. It’s an album, crafted from a bold vision, which conjures endless permutations with every visit.

Get Your copy of ‘Trill Scan‘ by T.Gowdy from your local record store or direct from Constellation HERE