L CON - The Isolator
idée fixe
Released May 12th, 2023
The Isolator is the latest full-length release from Guelph-based sonic-experimentalist L CON (Lisa Conway). Conway’s extensive musical catalogue somewhat famously defies simple genre classifications, boasting a diverse wash of avenues trodden - transiting pure instrumental improvisation, chambric art-pop ballads, soundtrack work, and all manner of more (or less) electronically tinged experiments. In writing this review it initially seemed necessary to explore as much of L CON’s recent history as possible in an attempt to contextualise The Isolator within such a distinct creative lineage. But ultimately, the record seems to live irrespective of bloodlines, acting as a ‘feature presentation’ unto itself - big, bold, self-contained and ultimately nourishing with or without an intimate knowledge of L CON’s characteristically varied career.
The Isolator is bookended by two ‘Alphorn Tape Loops’: short instrumental tracks texturally in stride with William Bazinski’s famous Disintegration Loops and featuring the melodic phrasing of Swiss alphorns. These twin instrumentals are cleverly emblematic of the rest of the album's essence - on one hand a symbolic representation of Conway’s Swiss background, but additionally a testament to her use of spiralling and cyclic composition to create a space for free expression.
As such, the record’s first track ‘Heimatort’ features a low arpeggiating synth line throughout, providing both rhythm and melody in lieu of any percussion. The repetition of this backing instrumentation induces a sort-of listener’s hypnosis - spinning around an axis point in musical space - it is fundamentally comforting, becoming a plumy blanket for Conway’s vocals, and the peripheral violins, to hover over. Similarly, in ‘Appear’, Conway’s voice intermingles with itself, harmonies appearing from all cardinal directions, enveloping the senses in the soft clouds of her various dancing deliveries. With some scrutiny one finds that, beyond Conway’s vocal, ‘Appear’ is really only composed of a modulating loop. The fullness that is achieved with such minimal elements here really attests to the specific and delicate richness Conway can conjure through voice alone.
While the use of repetition and lean production is recurrent throughout The Isolator, it is doubtless a strategic choice and one which is erected to be just as quickly subverted. ‘Ordinary Girl’ begins as a repeating drum-machine phrase, only to be pierced by guitar and followed by a hand-in-hand dance between Conway’s voice and a saxophone. Inevitably, minimalism breaks and the track tears open to reveal a full band of accompaniment, as if letting all the colours of a summer day flood into a dark room with the opening of the curtains. Meanwhile, the title track of the album initially appears to be a lamentous piano-based ballad, only until fabulous strings, and eventually a rhythm section, sweep in to adorn Conway’s melancholic pondering. The vocal delivery here is exquisitely emotional. Even with lyrics that may be somewhat elusive on a first pass (“‘Oh what an enigma’ they’ll say ‘how’d she make it through?’”), we sense Conway tapping into a kind of raw expression through texture and projection alone - evidently feeling the lyrics as she shares them - truly a profound beauty.
All in, The Isolator is a sonically masterful and creatively vibrant art-pop record from something of a contemporary Canadian-music veteran. Unpacking all of the nuance and tangled intimacy of its length (specifically in its lyrical content) is unfortunately unfeasible in the span of a review. But that’s ok, because The Isolator now exists as a permanent fixture of the world it was released into - a formidable addition to a certain canon, standing alongside all those works that influenced it, and ready to be listened to over and over again for a very long time.
- Nikolas Barkman
