HOLOVR - Nothing Is Whole (2021)

Given enough time, everything disappears. “Nothing is Whole” pores over this universal truth with delicate and glistening pieces built around drones and melodies from a rudimentary Yamaha FB-01 synth. Woven together with field recordings, modular processing, and multitrack looping, these ambient pieces drift along, bristle, and flare like distant dying gas giants – or fading sun bleached polaroids.

Returning to his HOLOVR moniker, these 9 pieces were recorded before lockdowns began around the world back at the start of 2020. Originally pegged for release on vinyl, (perhaps aptly fleeting) plans with another label fell through as a knock-on effect of the pandemic. The music is indeed a reflection on the very idea of fragility, comprising an unintentional soundtrack to a period where impermanence permeates every corner of culture.

An aesthetic cousin to 2019’s “Worlding” (released as Jimmy Billingham), “Nothing is Whole” continues with the former’s gridless structures and gradual, unfurling melodies. The imagery deployed by HOLOVR however, feels less expressive and more observational, as if witnessing the passing of a time and place into vaporous memory.