Since 2009 Grant Evans has been peering ever deeper into the kosmische abyss with his records as Nova Scotian Arms for Aguirre, Preservation and Hooker Vision. He's also known for the lush Quiet Evenings releases with his wife, Rachel Evans (Motion Sickness Of Time Travel), but in solo flight his sound is more wide-eyed, exploratory, reaching heady new climes on 'Cult Spectrum', arguably his most vivid vision yet. Perhaps it's thanks to an exquisite mastering job by Lawrence English, but there's a tangible elevation and expansion of his sound here, offering panoramic views of intergalactic proportions while still remaining true to a fairly stripped down and modest aesthetic. It's a melancholy sound, composed with considerable grace and tact. To open, 'Gathering/Composition' renders this dichotomy with the tension between stereo-swirling, dissonant cosmic synth swells and vast, yawning bass subduction, before the shimmering harmonics of 'Overcast (1st Delay)' are lapped by crashing waves of tempered synth noise which spray off into infinite space. And that sense of space is no more lucid than ever on 'Emulsion', an epic 16 minute zone of gaseous synth hues mingled with distanced shoegaze strums and banking dissonance seemingly scythed and shaped by some spectral hand.
