Daniel Borces : Meditations 1
Daniel Borces
Meditations 1
The mastermind behind Subsonic Eye’s shimmering dream pop, Daniel Borces has easily become one of Singapore’s most distinctive songwriters, inspiring legions of soft-boy friendly clones to flourish in their immediate Middle Class Cigars legacy. On this solo effort however, the frontman takes a bite-sized left turn – and unlike fellow bandmate Jared Lim’s radiant electronic forays as jorud, Borces trades in maximalist haze for a stripped down exercise in guitar counterpoint.
It's pretty zen. Here, Borces paints with his Jazzmaster alone, enshrouded by neither pedal chains nor digital splendour. Wiry, dry-signalled riffs are all these five minute-long minimalist sketches contain, but yet even without the reverb, his open voicings ensure a hypnotic dynamism throughout these pieces – most obvious when his pieces indulge in wide chord strokes. Waking Up climbs gliding tremolo-bar affectations to a blissful harmonic, while Passing Of Time revels in its drone-happy progressions, as refreshing hints of dissonance underpin the chiming layers.
Excitingly at times, defined structure also wriggles its way into the sketches. Of these, Morning Jog is the most fully formed, with its Sonic Youth-ian energy begging for a Steve Shelley backbeat to anchor it. Playing his lines with a vigorous attack, it sounds itself like a song barely contained within its skeletal shell, ready to break free at the slightest hint of a drum kit. Yellow Lamp closes the collection by wandering into emo-esque tonalities – but the midwest noodling doesn’t exactly blend well with the other tracks, nor does it make a piece more engaging than the previous four.
But even with the minor dud, the constant interplay between his guitar figures (benefitted by the raw multi-tracking and a tasteful single-coil tone) ensure that these pieces never fade into the background. 11am to 9pm is probably the most engaging study of this counterpoint, as carefully picked lines interlock and disengage at alternating turns, with their minor differences between channels unraveling with tension, building, looping and cascading one over another. From a surface level, the sonics of these intersections recall Glenn Branca's minimalist firestorms and Reich-like phasing, but they never reach the towering magnificence or complexity of their works – rather they meander and just stay as pretty guitar exercises.
Ultimately, the pieces that make up Meditations 1 are harmonically interesting studies, but they don’t stay long enough to make a significant impact, something perhaps inevitable with their brief runtimes. Then again, these pieces don’t need to be magnificent. After all, these meditations serve a purpose beyond their being songs – as just a chill side project, yes, but also as templates, snapshots, a journal documenting an evolution in progress.
Perhaps, it’s also foreshadowing. Already amongst Singapore indie rock’s leading lights, these nine minutes might be a dawning hint of a new chapter for Subsonic Eye – one moving away from textured sonic abstraction, to intricately-layered rock immediacy. The idea of a new Subsonic Eye? We can only wait, excited.
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