Following up 2024’s ‘Volta’, modular synthesist Loula Yorke is happy to declare ‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’.
While its predecessor was born out of composed sequences, ‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’ is an ambitious double opus that documents the Suffolk-based artist’s year of sonic journaling to record her daily life in rural England.
The end result is that Loula Yorke has presented a set of recordings that hum with soft voltage and modular shimmer for a peaceful aural glow with gentle looping melodies and field recordings fusing electronics and nature.
After the feeling of overwhelm exuded on ‘It’s been decided that if you lay down no-one will die’ from ‘Volta’, ‘Never Be Nervous Again’ makes a statement of focus and determination in its sonic collage. ‘Beautiful Things in Humble Places’ is just that, swathed in gorgeous sound design while ‘Everything Beating at the Same Brittle Pulse’ is appropriately named as well, fragile tones outlining things could break at any moment if not treated with care.
There are three variations of ‘Kenning’ with “Part I” comprising of abstract bleeps; however “Part II” livens up and brings in percussive elements while “Part III” gets much more rhythmic and swoopier before going a bit TANGERINE DREAM… like ‘Sparrowfall’ on Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Films’, this trilogy may have been better tracklisted together as a kind of “Kenning Suite”.
‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes I’ uses pretty hypnotic arpeggios that drift into meditative resonances while ‘Barely Aware of the Cup in My Hands’ expresses Erik Satie desire to make music that could “mingle with the sound of the knives and forks at dinner” by using a variety of kitchen utensils to accompany a soothing passage of electronics and subtle beats.
‘Let a Sound Complete Its Life II’ takes a diversion by playing around with drum ‘n’ bass while remaining cool and atmospheric, but not at all gentle or melodic is the generative swarm of ‘Spork’. ‘Sorry I Threw Away All Your Nails’ starts with a sweeping edge but withdraws as it apologises as ‘An Ironic Yet Devastating Demand’ explores the darker moodier side of cottage life.
In most of the pieces, there are subtle tunes and in the way that the melodies stretch and the systems loop, ‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’ is an accessible yet simultaneously cerebral record that possesses a giddy joy which can savoured as a set moment away from the noise of modern life.
“This isn’t an escape, but a quiet slipstream running alongside. A dream half-recalled, still happening in another room.”
‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’ is released as a double CD with bonus mixtape album ‘The Book Of Commonplace’ and download by Truxalis on 6th August 2025, available from https://loulayorke.bandcamp.com/album/time-is-a-succession-of-such-shapes
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Text by Chi Ming Lai
5th August 2025
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