Brian Pyle has just under his moniker Ensemble Economique while featuring J Moon a new ambient single “You, By Candlelight” (which can be listened to below via SoundCloud) that is available on his most recent release “Blossoms in Red” which came out earlier this month via Denovali Records.
“You, By Candlelight” is what one would expect from an ambient song: echoing, relaxing, celestial, etc. but at the same time there is this layer of darkness and tension underneath that makes this experience more foreboding and unnerving than one would usually expect from such a song. It is a unique experiment in taking ambiance and making it not so soothing. Pitchfork goes into further detail, saying:
Here Pyle lays down a simple, hypnotic electronic rhythm and a slowly strummed guitar, a perfect setting for the mellifluous vocals of J. Moon (aka Jessica Einaudi, an Italian singer and artist whose father is renowned composer Ludovico Einaudi). Singing short phrases surrounded by pregnant pauses, she conjures an atmosphere somewhere between the best Mimi Parker-sung Low songs and the work of Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti on David Lynch’s soundtracks. But “You, By Candlelight” also has an atmosphere all its own, one that seems to deepen with each subsequent listen.
The kind of cognitive dissonance created by “You, By Candelight” is extraordinary. Props to Pyle.
