Repose in blue

Once again I am awe-struck by the art that the city of Portland engenders. Matthew Cooper is better known for his project Eluvium which is characterised by expansive music covering minimalism, electronica and piano genres. Today I am looking at the album Copia from 2007.

Highlights: 

• Seeing You Off the Edges: One of the most powerful metaphors about suicide (or death) in modern times. This track is what distinguishes Matthew Cooper from the rest of the music community.  
  
• Indoor Swimming at the Space Station: Long, introvert sequence of minimalist electronic music that examines the condition of being. There is optimism and wonder in the track. One word: mesmerising. 
• Repose in Blue: Introspection and less pessimism than in Seeing You Off the Edges. 
• Prelude For Time Feelers: Piano-incorporated electronic sounds. 

Not only is Cooper an extremely elusive musician, his body of work carries an air of privacy that I find with few other artists. The music is expansive in the sense of the tracks broadening up as they progress. 

The second album I am considering of his is the triumphant Talk Amongst the Trees from 2005. There is a tenderness in the way he composes tracks like New Animals from the Air, and the music offers a far closer insight into whom Matthew Cooper might be. The music on this album is less expansive and maybe more quirky. The electronic beats are more unpredictable (despite following a fixed pattern) and the sound is a little more grainy (which is really cool). 

Highlights: 

• New Animals From The Air: I see this as an examination of a journey across the sea. There is an air of youthful hope and playfulness. Serenity rules in an otherwise grainy track relying heavily on electronic minimalism. 
•  Show Us Our Homes
• We Say Goodbye To Ourselves: Very peculiar track recurring to organ-like music with electronic background noise. 
• Area 41: Beautiful expansive music. Lasting 59 seconds it is a short electronic utterance. 
• Taken: Lasting a total of 16:56 it is an electronic ballad that is very interesting.