- Ambient music has a reputation -more or less fairly earned, who can say?- for being, at times, like aural wallpaper. Soundscapes full of intellectual pretensions and not a whole lot else. I can’t imagine this is an accusation I will ever be able to level at Timothy Fairless, a Meanjin/Brisbane composer whose already lengthy career has featured numerous releases that fall, at least partially, under the umbrella of the genre, but no two of which are very much alike. From scapes rent asunder by post-rock crescendos and doomish guitars, to wholly synthetic, dark ambient horrors, whatever sounds you’ve heard from Fairless before, don’t expect them now. If there is pretension on his latest, it comes from being a concept record twice over, but, as in the past, he makes a fairly good case for it again, on Rising Water.

It comes off the back of another piece, released just two months ago, a multidisciplinary work with a title relatable to anybody from Australia: It’s Both The Heat And The Humidity. The cleverly treated field recordings are a cut above what a lot of artists manage to achieve in that regard: a kind of hyper-real evocation of the Australian landscape, bonded with more synthetic, ambient sounds. Fairless used these as a fairly private and inscrutable way of exploring his own memories and queer identity, which is not half so obvious as the Australiana on display.

It turns out that he’s got more to say about the unique environment of the great southern land, returning to it only a month later, on Rising Water. The title is exactly as topical as you’re imagining, but approaches the subject matter in a way you’re probably not. Thanks to La Niña and climate change in particular, many of us are more familiar than we’d like to be with water in its many forms, but Fairless is chancing his arm and invoking the elements once more. As he puts it: “Rising Water is steeped in the storms, floods and downpours of the sub-tropics.” He makes a point of noting that beyond the menace of nature there is beauty too and sets about trying to convince us of that.

That’s where the record’s second concept kicks in: the whole thing is played on glasses of water. If you’re running for the hills at this point, I could hardly blame you. If I’d been asked, I don’t think I could have imagined that idea in a way that wouldn’t make furrows appear in my brow. Yet hear the chimes and harmonics of opener Wavemaking and judge for yourself. To my ears it sounds closer to a Gamelan than anything else; a brittle and bright one and the more beautiful for it. It also does a fine job of recreating the sensations of undulating waters in a way that is simultaneously entrancing and somehow, slightly ominous.

The record’s middle stretch, Here Comes The Lantern, is more languid, by design. In my mind it’s the floodwaters at their peak. Turgid brown liquid eddies in the twelve minutes on offer, broken by brief, percussive flurries of rain and what may be an impression of an approaching outboard motor. It may be longer than you want to experience the queasiness of these sounds, especially if you lived the experiences depicted, but I’m pretty sure that’s at least part of the intention. Closer, Shelter In Noise is, of course, the hammering rain and it’s like lying in bed as a summer storm roars across the sky. Is this a comfortable sensation of being dry and protected, cradled by noise, or is it claustrophobic and the herald of oncoming destruction? I lean towards the former, but then, I didn’t get flooded a couple of months ago.

I guess it’s weird, judging an ambient record on its themes in a way that feels…almost like it’s a moral question; but these sounds hit us exactly where we live. It’s undeniably impressive, working from such an abstract palette, Fairless achieves such a visceral recreation of the sounds and rhythms of the natural world. In a way it’s difficult to say whether you’re hearing the menace and beauty of a piece of music, or like the waters lapping at the doorstep, the inescapable sound of the encroaching world itself.

- Chris Cobcroft.