Review: Mothlite - The Flax Of Reverie

Posted on 1 September 2008 | No Comments

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Post Rock

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On their debut album The Flax Of Reverie, Mothlite reaches for the grandiose heights of the foggy English countryside and do a pretty good job of hiding amongst the Pennines. Anyhow, Mothlite is a basically the duo of London-based instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan and Finnish engineer Antti Uusimaki. Their music is (from the get go) a striking balance of point and counterpoint. It is full of cinematic and atmospheric soundscapes and song fragments that soar above the clouds only to drastically drop into the darkest of dark caves you could possibly find. The Flax Of Reverie can be sinister and terrifying only to find a gorgeous melody buried somewhere in the miasmic din.

As piano delicately tip-toes around the room, and orchestration of percussion, strings, vocals, slight synthetic affects, guitars, horns, organs, and a vast array of other instruments crop up to do away with the possibility of any monotony creeping into these songs. Honestly, I like this album way more than I thought I would when I initially put it on. It isn’t a difficult album by any stretch of the imagination but it might seem that way because it is so expertly composed in a way that shifts the mood from dark to light and back again over and over. There is a slight uneasy feeling that percolates out of The Flax Of Reverie throughout the entire length of the album without overtaking it completely.

MP3 | Mothlite – The One In The Water The Flax Of Reverie