Eluvium
Similes

THE REVIEW

A soft wind ripples the river's water. It's cold. It's afternoon and everything is silent. Every living being is silent, listening to the sweet and melodic symphony of nature. The wind caresses the calm, intangible air that hovers over the trees, the fog descends on the river. It feels like being in Ireland.

I wrap myself tighter in my coat, unable to surrender to the flow of things. I remain motionless, like a statue, bewildered, astonished by what nature offers us. It's beautiful to see how a drop of rain gently makes a leaf tremble, how a little fish happily splashes sleepily in the icy winter waters. Everything is in its place, and yet it seems not to be. Perhaps all this carefree melancholy in savoring such a tranquil landscape is not real. I am finally content. I am happy because all this exists, and I am happy because I have only savored the intimacy of such a moment thanks to the soft light of Eluvium's music. Countless times I have listened to and savored such music, but I have never felt a sense of intimacy, an intimacy with myself, as Eluvium's music has managed to generate in me.

A superb example of evolution.

Musical evolution.

Matthew Robert Cooper returns in February 2010 with a new album, Similes, a production of the highest compositional level. The music is a continuous evolution of sounds, small whispers, light and poetically dreamy keyboard compositions. This album is an abyss of emotions, it is the chasing of butterflies, the carefree abandonment to our dreams, the recognition of the beauty of things, it is knowing that music is, above all, emotions, sensations.

Cooper knows how to convey these impressions vividly, pulsatingly, and he knows how to do it even as he moves away from his musical habitat. For the first time, he uses the vocal element. A low voice that accompanies us on this journey of discovery of things that is Similes.

That's enough. I don't know why for some works I can't talk about the music but am dragged into unnecessary outbursts. I don't know and can't explain why sometimes everything becomes confusing and the music drags me into the past. I know with certainty, however, that "Bending Dream" has given me and will continue to give me a unique state of mind, that only a very select circle of songs has managed to give me.

Something will exist forever, something will exist even when only faded photos of us remain, something will still exist. Even in the infinite, something will remain. A sensation, a small memory pleasant to us. Everything will pass, but not everything. It will remain inside us, in our bones, in our heart, an indissoluble part of our lives...

1. "Leaves Eclipse The Light" (5:39)
2. "The Motion Makes Me Last" (5:24)
3. "In Culmination" (2:54)
4. "Weird Creatures" (4:31)
5. "Nightmare 5" (3:26)
6. "Making Up Minds" (6:28)
7. "Bending Dream" (2:40)
8. "Cease To Know" (11:16)