Decade in Exile’s Transit/Pulse is reportedly the first work from UK song smith Duncan Lloyd to tackle the subject of his father’s passing back in 2010 head-on. So, unfortunately, this is at once a recording about death. But hey, cheer up, kid. The way Lloyd deals with the trauma and sadness of such a time is more about transition, movement, and acceptance—specifically, the passing from the material world of the present into the immaterial endlessness of fluid consciousness and thought that is the great-forever.
Transit/Pulse is about the space between these two extreme opposites. The resulting record turned out to be something a lot more optimistic than expected. That forward looking, almost upbeat mood is expressed here musically with highly reverberant guitars shimmering like the light from beyond, and with a voice that echoes like a ghost in the back of your mind, coaxing you softly into a waking state from a dream. There’s about a 50/50 mixture of “songs” in the more traditional sense complete with bass and drums, and heady ambient textures. The two approaches sometimes criss-cross with subtle overlap, accentuating this album’s thematic “in-between” stasis. No matter where exactly the music sits stylistically, it’s all done with a gentle touch that feels as soft as air, and Lloyd’s sentiments and emotions are felt with a palpable tenderness that extends beyond his meek, melodic singing that shows up rarely (but sure is welcome in its brevity). As a whole it’s a little sad, a little gray, a drizzle here and there. But like a good rain, Transit/Pulse is one of those wonderfully necessary things we all need sometimes, to sit in front of and stare at for as long as it takes.
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