Three years on from the release of his critically acclaimed second album as Tambores En Benirras, Graham Newby returns with album number three, a glorious celebration of the mystical, magical and life-affirming musical meditation on stretched-out sunrises and the breathtaking beauty of dawn.
Newby has more reason that most to cherish picturesque and soul-enriching sun-up moments. During the process of making second set Onda Horizontales, the long-serving Cumbrian DJ, crate-digger, beat-maker and producer’s sight deteriorated to such a degree that he was certified ‘registered blind’. As a result, new working methods were found, with Newby delivering widescreen Balearic visions as much from muscle memory and feel as the visual environmental cues that once fired his imagination.
Third album Alba Amba – ‘amber dawn’ in English – finds Newby in dawn-ready mode, serving up music to soundtrack stunning sunrises and those clear early morning moments where anything seems possible. It’s a simple idea, beautifully executed, with the artist once known as Gripper conjuring up a meditative and mesmerising mix of slow-burn aural colours, tactile textures, gradually unfurling chords, and heady melodic motifs.
Newby sets his stall out with the smouldering, pre-dawn bliss of the jaw-dropping title track, where reverb-laden female vocalisations and twinkling electronics usher in a golden dawn, before reaching for shimmering, sun-bright melodies, heart-stirring chords and undulating TB-303 lines on the ambient acid chug of ‘Bucanero Acido’.
Newby’s instinctive grasp of mood and texture comes to the fore on the drifting, soft-focus ambient dub head-nod of ‘No Se Me Pasa’, where strummed acoustic guitars, echoing vocal samples and weighty low-end warmth catch the ear, while his history of dusty downtempo beat-making – originally explored on his early 2000s releases for Grand Central Records – informed the dancehall-meets-trip-hop fusion of ‘Batalla De Etiquettas’.
As the album progresses, the full scope of Newby’s loved-up and languid early morning vision becomes ever-more apparent. There’s ‘Aqui Me Dejo’, a glorious nod to the 90s ambient movement updated for the post-dubstep generation, the bubbly beats and woozy electronics of ‘Bossa Nouveaux’ – all jazzy beats, deep bass, warbling motifs and gentle acid lines – and the gorgeous Balearic nu-disco-meets-classic-IDM shuffle of the cute and kaleidoscopic ‘El Mar Llama’.
And so it continues, delivering ear-catching, emotive and elongated delights rooted in the orange glow of an Ibizan morning around 5am. Newby reaches for echoing trumpet solos and gently cascading chords on the blissful drift of ‘San Vicente, Despacio’, charges giddily towards 6am Balearic dancefloors on the locked-in hypnotism of ‘Cambio De Plano’, gets rubbery, bouncy and cheery on the joyous ‘Tenir Bon Cap’, and echoes the slow-build, wide-eyed bliss of the original ambient house movement on ‘Amenecer En Amnesia’.
With its epic, head-turning ambient intro, raw electronic bass, effects-laden hand percussion and slow, restless build, this triumphant closing cut signals the moment the sun has well and truly arrived above the horizon. It’s a genuinely stunning conclusion to a soul-stirring set.
