Albums like Kepler’s Choice further demonstrate why experimentalism in the new music sphere is the dominant force. Kepler’s Choice’s orchestrators, Robert Poss and E-Clark Cornell, have spent their respective careers forging vastly different paths. Poss, as leader of Band Of Susans; Cornell, via an endless steam of releases under his latome2 moniker.
The pair share a vision to always keep moving beyond, and both having stretched to all corners of the world in collaboration, they have enough reference points, not only to exceed the wordcount of this current review, but also to sink a ship.
With Poss now based in Boston after spending most of his life in New York and Cornell plying his trade in Philadelphia, Kepler’s Choice is a giant leap from the pair’s 2024 EP, Definitive Spaces. In many ways, Kepler’s Choice could be described as just that. A definitive space where the duo roam freely, resulting in a unique cadence.
Symphonic minimalism that has a strange, hypnotic effect, it’s Cornell who does the front running on Kepler’s Choice. He pulls Poss into his world of film muzak in what could be could be considered psychedelia aping itself. (See the aptly titled Russian Tea Room.)
Or maybe it’s not? That’s the beauty of Kepler’s Choice. It reveals so many new layers and meanings dependent upon one’s mood. The eponymous opening piece, a new brand of ambience in what sounds like warped snapshot of Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
Robert Poss + E-Clark Cornell - Kepler's ChoiceThe residue leaks into The Ripple Effect from an Emotional Error. A touching piano-based composition that comes on at the unhurried pace of chemical rush. Its colours, soft and unintrusive, superseding the sound. So too the fever dream that is Transverse. Fractured soundscapes, seemingly reversed engineered to combat the guitar orchestras of Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham.
It’s here where the darkness creeps into Kepler’s Choice. Sublimination, a composition of slow plinking akin to a spider creeping into the corner of its web. And the mood gets heavier on Codified Betrayal and Dominant Aggression. As their titles suggest, the last two pieces on Kepler’s Choice find Poss and Cornell exploring the softer edges of drone, not a world away from what Sunn O))) have achieved throughout the years. It’s unexpected, revealing new facets of the trip this album is.
Speaking to Poss last year, and he said that he would always be open to collaboration. Following Definitive Spaces, his sonic alliance with Opollo’s Jarek Leskiewicz for the OTAGO LP last year was another successful outing in a career that has boasted many. Vastly different from his communicative tussle with Cornell, but that’s the whole point for both artists. Poss and Cornell’s mission statement is to never make the same record twice, and it’s the reason why this collaboration works so well.
Kepler’s Choice sees Poss and Cornell at their most adventurous. The duo bring out the best in each other, whereby there really isn’t anything else out there like it. And by affording the time it deserves, this is the only logical conclusion someone with a clean pair of ears will come to.
Kepler’s Choice is out now via No Sides Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.
