Ex Animo
Another will-o-the-wisp in the HJR back catalogue, disappeared nearly as soon as released.
HJR albums often take years to gestate before finding release. Different versions of one track here "Ipso Epso" could be heard being extemporised live at solo gigs over the preceding decade - a long, calm, slow building piano/electronics ambient track where nothing really seems to happen and yet in the background there's a constant hive of strange noises low end, hisses, hums and creaks that hint at something 'out there'. The album title "Ex Animo" - translates from Latin as 'From the Heart' which offers the key to unlocking this apparently unassuming collection of vignettes - if you listen concentratedly enough you'll eventually locate its soul. The album's final track and centrepiece "De Profundis" ('From the Depths') evokes the biblical Psalm 130 about spiritual wanderlust from darkness to light and is where your patience is finally rewarded as things erupt above the surface into naked emotion. One of his more unassuming albums, largely for completists only, but the reward is there if you want it enough.