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This is the solo project of David Palmer. He has been self-releasing music as Sky Flying By since 2008, and apparently before that he played Straightedge, or at least that is what he says on his bio. Huh.
This is not straightedge punk. Instead, this is noodly post-rock ambient guitar music. Obvious comparisons are Yellow6, Portal, July Skies, Lights Out Asia, and Robin Guthrie's solo work. (BRENDAN'S NOTE: There are also, probably, several dozen other reviews of this kind of stuff located here on EvilSponge. It seems that PostLibyan is a bit obsessed with it!)
And, as someone who consumes quite a bit of this music, i like what Mr. Palmer is doing here. This is a pretty engaging example of the genre.
The album kicks off with a distorted e-bowed guitar drone in Untitled No. Two. Eventually a drum beat taps in, then another layer of guitar, this one picking along over the drone. Eventually he layers in strings and piano, and the whole thing gets a little dense.
Palmer starts off Laura with a clicking sample and some strange drones, then a piano. he adds in a great bass riff after about 3 minutes, and scattered drumming as the drone builds to a frenzy. It's really catchy, just a skipping beat and layers of drones.
In The Last Place You Looked piano tinkles over washes of synths and a faint clicking and pulsing IDM beat. At about the 2:30 mark, a waves of synths washes over the song, and it becomes very lovely. This is probably my favorite track here, just wonderfully done and meandering in a lovely way.
On Have You Found Home? Palmer channels Lights Out Asia. This song is a layer of chiming guitar and another layer of grinding guitar both over some tinkling electro rhythms. It is sparse and kind of noisy, in a good way. On the other hand, Left Unfinished is sparse in an almost Loscil kind of way. The guitar notes are stretched out through e-bow drone, echoing over a wavering bass. It is just a sparse echoing that is rather lovely. After 2:30 Palmer suddenly adds drumming and a chiming guitar, the drumming pretty intense and the guitar riffing along. I like the way that this one grows.
A high-pitched drone wavers over a piano in The Last Tenth. Eventually Palmer comes in with a distorted guitar, long notes wrenched from the device and fed through dozens of pedals, as ominous bass builds and sounds clatter. This is an intense tune, building to a loud, wavering drone that just ends, suddenly, leaving you reeling in the silence. Well done Mr. Palmer.
And finally the album ends with December, a wavering drone, some guitar, and some really intense drumming. This is the hardest that Palmer has hit the drum kit the whole album, and it adds to the depth of the drones. A nice end to the record.
For post-rock, this is pretty engaging. Palmer is not breaking any new ground, but he does what does rather well.
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