The latest compilation from Time Is Away, creators of the cult NTS Radio show known for its fugitive sounds and archival reveries. Following Ballads (A Colourful Storm, 2022), it’s an autumnal dreamscape - intimate, unresolved, and quietly transportive. Resonances emerge between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese composer Chen Ming Chang’s heartbroken Rainwater (from Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Dust In The Wind), and the solitary improvisations of pianist Delphine Dora. Elsewhere: the hushed isolation of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes’ No One Around to Hear It, Klang’s narked minimalism, Omertà’s echoic grooves, Slapp Happy’s dubby Is It You?, and Simon Fisher Turner’s psych-tinged rework of PiL’s Poptones as The King of Luxembourg. Marking Time Is Away’s 10th anniversary, Searchlight Moonbeam is borderless and intuitive - an album for the seasons. Featuring an essay by Jeremy Atherton Lin and cover art by Penny Davenport, it deepens Time Is Away’s singular world.
