- James Clements' 2010 album Nothing Is Certain not only rejuvenated the San Diego producer's career, but more importantly it started him down a winding path of musical exploration. By now he's moved on from drum & bass to something more open-ended, a style marked by cinematic atmospheres and mournful melodies. He's also reignited his passion for ambient (a style he's been dabbling in since well before Nothing Is Certain), signing to BC's Silent Season and now delivering his third full-length for the label in as many years. It's telling that Clements doesn't use another alias for this work—Truth Be Told really does sound like ASC, only collapsed and disintegrated.
There's a stillness to Clements' ambient composition that matches Silent Season's preoccupation with nature. These tracks are like field recordings from some imaginary world. There are rustles here and there, and implacable distant noises—carefully built ecosystems are contained within each one. Clements is a master of creating moods and setting scenes: "Hall Of The Gods" evokes a massive space with its yawning melodies, while the airy "Lucent Vessel" sends a chill through the room.
While there are no real hooks on Truth Be Told, the way Clements sticks to a classicist model of ambient music is riveting in its own way. Melodies unspool fluidly over the course of six or seven minutes, gently repeating like a woven tapestry, but with enough going on underneath to make every track fascinating. The LP ebbs in and out of more lucid moments, too, like the plaintive guitar and bass work on the quavering "Behind The Veil," or the almost-startling presence of vocals on "Widening Mire." Only "The Certainty Of Tides," which sounds like the previous eight tracks layered on top of each other, delivers full filmic scale, but the conclusion feels earned after the slow drift of the rest of the album.
Complex but rarely dense, Truth Be Told puts a lot of different ideas into its slowly simmering pot. It's a wide-ranging style Clements has already shown off with his podcasts, which connect post-punk and '80s pop with electronic music. His love for groups like Cocteau Twins is obvious on Truth Be Told, and it comes through in subtle ways—the watery echo of pads on "Some Other Life," or the shimmering post-rock of "Machinery Of Light." Discerning moments like these keep the album from congealing into beatless mush. When Truth Be Told is playing, it becomes your surroundings, rather than merely soundtrack them.
Tracklist01. Some Other Life
02. The Machinery Of Night
03. Half The Words You Say
04. Hall Of The Gods
05. Behind The Veil
06. Lucent Vessel
07. The Widening Mire
08. Slow Autumn
09. The Certainty Of Tides