northern is all about clean digital samples and warm tones. northern is all about lovely guitar meanderings and skittering textures, pastoral inclinations and simplistic structures. perhaps it is the frozen nature of canada’s landscape or the endearing dismay of the season’s discontent that has transformed us. winter reminds us all of polaroid pictures and places that exist only in dreams. perhaps we have transformed ourselves.
::context::
drawn : a skittering, textural work. slow drones and warm melodies - staggering, wholly affectual.
"Drawn is a study in turning lost to found sound, capturing momentary guitar passes, and releasing them, subtly altered, into enduring motifs, finding felicity in the fleeting and making it stay awhile to become compelling. What happens is that this Northern music initially seems to drift by asking nothing from you, but you gradually find yourself, oddly, wanting from it. And it yields graciously. In being quiet, unwanting, you want to be quiet with it. It’s the New Quiet... Drawn’s digital means of generation takes on an increasingly naturalistic
sounding aspect helped by its manipulated guitar-enriched intake. The guitar tradition
drawn on Drawn is the ostinato introspections and plucked intimacies of 1 mile North,
Labradford, and Dan Abrams. Ostensibly different from Infraction stable signature sound,
it somehow sits comfortably within it.
" - Alan Lockett (e/i magazine)"Hard to describe this without using the typical mushy terminology for ambient music. But it’s warm and pillowy soundscapes with a hint of percussion here and there. I don’t think "groundbreaking" is really the point of ambient anymore (I doubt it ever was, aside from the novelty factor of it), but this is excellent, engaging, involving, soothing ambient music, neither dark nor light, and the more I listen the more I discover. It’s a real head-turner, one of those "what’s that playing in the other room?" records. Definitely one of my favorites of 2007, so far." - Asphalt Eden (album commentary)
"A very very pleasant ambient drift style electronica CD from our friends at Infraction Records. It’s by Northern, who are a duo providing us with an eleven track collection of epic proportions. "Drawn" is slow, warm, meandering and yet still captivating. Long droning tones, lush synth pads and the kind of atmospheric quality associated with the more minimal moments of Kompakt (say about five years ago) or Kilbride’s finest." - Norman Records"...A nice collection of nicely spare melodies and textures. There’s
some glitchy-crackly elements here and there, but they’re used
effectively as parts of the music (coloration on top of a quiet drone,
for example), rather than the basis for an entire piece. Here you might
find some quiet rhythmic elements, and there you might hear some
environmental sounds. All of the elements are blended together to make a
very nice set of quiet pieces." - David (Nabble Ambience)"The architecture becomes more digitally-enhanced, espousing sound 12k principles. Shuttle358, Taylor Deupree, and Fourcolor would all seem to be Northern touchstones, sharing a similar delight in deployment of small gesture processed loopstrata, fluting, floating, fibrillating -- at once a surface over which to skitter a glitch-scatter and a cushion for repose." - Forced Exposure""Drawn" is a disc that could have come out on 12k or Kranky: Taylor Deupree would fall in love at first sight with the oneiric organic electronica of Northern, not too far removed from certain works of Eluvium, and influenced, as often occurs in such cases, with the desertified stases of Stars Of The Lid. The eleven fragments of "Drawn" follow on one from the other almost continuously, in a seamless sonorous flow, constructed on layers of dreaming guitars and gentle synth arpeggios, underpinned here and there with lazy muffled beats...Infraction keeps moving forward, not missing a beat." - Losing It Today"Definitely on the inviting side of digital ambiance, each of the 11-tracks is given a simple one-word title - “Coastingâ€, “Drawnâ€. “Seams“, “Cinemaâ€, etc. with each containing strata of various combinations of gossamer tones, lightly processed guitar, cozy melodies, effervescent textures, gentle rhythmic ornamentation, soft drones, and sonic wisps of orchestral-like ambiance. There’s enough guitar titivation interspersed throughout to keep the overall sound from becoming too digital. In one way the songs are soothing electronic lullabies but, at the same time, they also have a moving cinematic quality that reflects the topography within which they came to be. A feeling of effortlessness is present at all times as the songs glide independently of one another and then conjoin when the time is right.
If you’re familiar with the grainy, guitar-based aesthetic behind some of the 12K or Apestaartje releases (I’m thinking Fourcolor, Sebastien Roux, Christopher Willits), you have a general idea of what “Drawn“ is about but that’s not good enough. The real richness, beauty, and poignancy of Northern‘s music is revealed in the minutiae of sounds that comprise each individual track. Before you know it, you’re gently drawn into and captured by their own personal interpretation of ambient music." - Earlabs.org"Northern’s sound is just simply a delicious cocktail of melodic drones and ambient textures that will lull you with it’s sleepy and enchanting sound. Gorgeously processed tones are layered to give you a sense of peaceful melancholy and the tracks really do have a subtle, dreamlike quality. I’d rate this aas one of my favourite releases of the year so far to be perfectly honest and with not a single note out of place this gets a big thumbs up and a huge recommendation." - Smallfish Records"Northern, the collaboration of two brother, Davin and Kevin Chong from Canada. Stretched out fields of sound, immense tapestries of clouds, fields of hay... below surface there is the ur-beat, the heart rhythm, the ticking of a clock that makes this very very vaguely connected to minimal techno (and I mean very very vaguely) of Chain Reaction at their very very most laidback sense. Like a simple delay ticking. ’Drawn’ sounds perhaps more 12K than Infraction, but then Infraction didn’t exactly settle for one specific form of ambient music, and that’s why it’s such an interesting label... great subtle, atmospheric music releases." - FdW"It is an incredibly beautiful album." - Paul Gough (aka Pimmon)"But my main infatuation at the moment is "Drawn" by Kevin and Davin Chong from Edmonton, Alberta; a prairie town that is the home to the province’s government core and a lively Fringe theatre scene. Other than that it is a town most likely to create a desire to imagine, especially in the winter months. The music is less about tape loops and long form decay. It consists of medium length tracks suffused with warmth and peripheral scuffs and bearing titles such as "Cinema", "Migrate", "Hiroshima" and, not surprisingly,"Winters". The cover’s images are redolent of prairie-ish nostalgia and might suggest a yearning for the past that is often evoked by the likes of Boards of Canada. But Drawn escapes the more mannered, self-conscious BoC feel in favour of a more natural homegrown sound that evolves organically, like an updated version of Eno’s "On Land" concocted in a stove-heated kitchen in winter with just the right amount of new technology and trusted, burnished old tools." - Mark Mushet (writer for the Vancouver Review)
"There must be something in the water in Canada, or maybe it is the air that they breathe. Whatever it is, the quality of work coming from there is of consistently high quality, and Northern are no exception. Their debut album is a spellbinding work of ambient soundscapes which clear the mind and calm the nerves. I often listen to ambient music at work as I find it helps me stay focused, and doesn’t interfere with my job. However, during a stressful day, I decided to give Drawn a listen, and by the time the album had finished, all I could think about was crawling under my desk and going to sleep. So I give you a word of warning: do not listen to this album when it is imperative that you stay awake, especially at work, and most certainly when you are driving. It may not even be safe to listen to this when you are walking down the street, for you may collapse in the middle of the road and get run over by a motor vehicle. The tracks on Drawn are filled with warmth and create a comforting atmosphere for its listener. Containing layers of ambient textures, melodic drones, carefully placed glitches, and processed guitar, each track floats effortlessly into the next, and structural shifts are slow and subtle. “Coasting,†“Drawn,†and “Seams†are dreamy meandering pieces, while “Lesser†and “Pacific†incorporate prominent percussive tones which throb lightly in the background. Drawn is a quiet and soothing album that will appeal to fans of Windy & Carl, Shuttle358, Mountains, Fourcolor, and Taylor Deupree." - The Silent Ballet (7.5/10)"To note that Northern’s debut release Drawn is largely free of tension shouldn’t be interpreted as veiled criticism. The collection’s eleven tapestries unspool unhurriedly, with a graceful, organic meander that makes its restrained meditations all the more transporting. There’s a warm, pastoral character to Northern’s sound; though the Chong brothers no doubt execute their material using digital means, they de-emphasize abrasive noisemaking in favour of soothing tonal drift assembled from layers of processed guitars and synths. The penultimate setting, “Hiroshima,†doesn’t re-create the horrific moment of devastation that was visited upon the city in 1945 but instead presents it as placid paradise of shimmering haze where flute tones and glistening slivers resound. In some pieces, a palpable outdoors dimension emerges: the crackle of a campfire or babbling stream is heard in “Manage†and natural sounds—or at least a convincing evocation of same—rise to the surface of the willowy mass in “Migrate.†The collection isn’t entirely without beats either. A soft shuffle and beating kick drum provide understated rhythmic heft to “Seams,†a ticking pulse gently prods “Lesser,†and a gamelan bell and rapidly-clicking patterns propel “Pacific†forward." - Textura"A brilliant release from Infraction Records, the debut album by Northern creates ambience that is immediately alluring but also has depth enough for many replays. Mature ambient music from Canada." - Stillstream"Nicely anchored deliberate droney undertones and intricate sub glitchy additions evoking and very, very subtle state of ambiance. Nothing here to jerk you out of a state consciousness but expertly prepared transgressions that keep your mind focused without having to work on picking little bits out. Drawn remains in that nice space throughout, never quite letting you escape but equally not demanding too much of you." - Barry McNeil
