Two Acorns – 15th May 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
Remastered reissues can be more than simply an event for collectors, and aren’t always an act of exploitation on the part of the label or the band. In some instances, such as this, they afford the opportunity for a work to be released as was initially conceived, or otherwise tweaked to iron out imperfections which have rankled for years. And they also provide an opportunity to reflect and reassess – for both the artist and the listener. This is also true in this instance, particularly for me in my capacity as listener. As such, it’s worth sharing from the accompanying note:
‘Originally released in 2009, Capri is a concept album composed of fragmented vignettes, lost minutes and scenes from an idyllic imagining. A collection of brief moments, suspended shimmers, and frail settings, Capri was never meant to be more than its own thin veneer; a naked and subtle wash of saturated and semi-transparent colors, rolling as gently as ocean waves against rocky beaches, of fading afternoon sunlight, of momentary experience. Peaceful yet isolated, quiet yet collapsing, they are fading moments without definite borders, directions, or conclusion.
‘Remastered by Stephan Mathieu from the original tapes, and expanded to include the complete recordings excluded from the 2009 CD edition, this collection is finally present in its complete form in the deluxe edition as a black vinyl 3xLP, and 2CD. All music by Danielle Baquet and Will Long, 2007-2008.’
Presumably for reasons of length, the original release featured truncated versions of the tracks. Given the fleeting, fragmentary nature of the compositions, a piece cut here and there was likely deemed reasonable and barely noticeable, a fair trade for keeping the album down to a single CD (released in a limited edition of 400) back in 2009. It was one of the first Celer albums to be released on a label, after all, after Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long (who would leave a short while later) had spent the first years of their career doing everything the DIY way and producing physical releases by hand. So this is the restoration the album as intended some seventeen years ago.
My first encounter with Celer was in 2014, and at the time, the minimal nature of their ambient forms only had limited appeal, and my reviews, while positive, were brief, partly because I was knocking out up to half a dozen short reviews a day, and partly because I didn’t find there was much to say about albums which contained, to my ear as it was, not a lot of sound. And this, then, is the re-evaluation, the reflection, the reassessment – and the admission that not only has my palette expanded over the years, and I’ve become more accommodating, more amenable to different forms, but that I was perhaps not capable of listening so closely, not as attenuated to nuance and detail twenty-two years ago as I am now. That doesn’t mean my hearing’s improved (because that’s highly unlikely) or my attention is greater (it really isn’t: lockdown and worsening anxiety in the subsequent years have had a substantially detrimental impact there), but perhaps because of these things, in addition to an evolving appreciation through exposure, I’ve found that concentrating on musical works of a sparser nature can be quite therapeutic.
‘Falling in Trickles’, one of the longer pieces on the new edition, at three and three quarter minutes, was omitted from the original release, as were ‘Red Elements’ (5:40) and ‘I Slow for Love’ (2:50). And it’s here that it becomes apparent just how cropped down the 2009 release of Capri really was, with twenty-nine track, compared to the thirty-six of the new edition.
Given the nature of the material, the question of precisely how much impact the cuts made to the overall listening experience is debatable: as with so many Celer releases, Capri is abstract and nebulous, more about the overall experience than specifics. There’s no ‘hey, here comes a good bit’ nudge moment. The fact is, there are no ‘moments’ to be found here, just a succession of vaporous drifts, textures and tones which resonate against one another to create subtle shifts in atmosphere. ‘Bracelets Passed To Spanish Hands’ brings piano to the fore, but the sound is still in soft-focus, and at a minute and a half long, it feels more like a dream, fleeting, ephemeral, than anything – and this is in many ways a fair summary of the album as a whole. On the original edit, only ‘Lint White’ (at an expansive, ponderous seven and a half minutes) surpassed the four-and-a-half minute mark, with most pieces rising up and fading away after just a couple of minutes, and the fact that each piece is distinct and separate instead of one drifting or melting into the next creates more of a sense of a sketchbook – in this case, a huge portfolio of sketches, incomplete, in progress… but then, so often the finished work polishes away the essence of that sketch. Nothing about Celer suggests an immediacy which might be diminished through the expansion of the ideas presented, and yet… and yet. Listening to the drifting fragments, many of which are barely two minutes in length, there’s a sense of… something incomplete, like a dream or a thought that slips from your mind in an instant.
AA
AA
Aural Aggravation 