‘Hemispheres’ is not an album that seems in the slightest to be easily conceived or conceptualised. The smorgasbord of sounds feels like an abstract painting, a splash of colours strewn across a canvass that seem initially haphazard but slowly meticulously stroked. The album is a collection of fragments, of bits and pieces that have been intricately stitched with meticulous detail and an eye for gaps to be filled with even more shrapnel. It’s a shotgun, an absolute array of tiny bullets that each hit you in bursts as much as they do in flowing waves. Thematically though, ‘Hemispheres’, is all about a journey. From the opening track Submerge, which recasts elements of Orpheus’s journey between worlds to the final track Between Tides, a momentary pausing to look out beyond the forces that push and pull us, Hemispheres is an album about navigation and voyage.
The sheer imagination of Au Revoir Hands lies in the eclecticism of the production. A seamless blend of neo-classical with wildly experimental and leftfield electronic elements is an ambitious endeavour that shouldn’t work as well as it does. Au Revoir Hands are Anthony Lyons and Emily Williams, a duo who perfectly understand the right kind of textures and how to match experimental minimalism with maximal arrangements. Their ability to walk the tightrope, never veering too far to either side, illustrates the full gambit of their capabilities. Hemispheres is where cello, moog & buchla synths meet grittier fragments of noise, broken and reframed beats, underpinned by loops of viola da gamba, harp and strings.
The result is a magical piece of avant-garde neo-classical electronic music with bits and pieces of art pop strewn in. All in all, a waterfall you want to be under.