Emuul - The Drawing Of The Line

Seattle's Emuul has been around the block a few times over the
last few years, releasing an excellent string of tapes on Digitalis,
Monorail Trespassing, Stunned and others.

Emuul (Kyle Iman) has always shown a masterful level of
restraint and subtlety, leaving the listener to fill in the blanks.
Iman uses each song as a dot on a map that ultimately leads
you to an aural treasure. The Drawing of the Line is his most
fully-realized work, crafting a set of deceptively complex songs
that flirt with unexpected, slightly-buried pop influences to create
an expertly-composed meditation on an unknown future.

On the opener, “Expectations,” Emuul is at its restrained and
sanguine best. Using a series of repetitive, evocative notes
over a bed of rising-and-falling oscillations, there’s much
promise ahead. “Love Theme” is even more tender and
blossoms into near-catharsis, longing for that time when
everything you hope for is finally within reach.

Those feelings are set aside with the worried and frenetic walls
of “The First Look.” As the synthesizer and guitar move faster,
and as wordless vocals descend on the mix, it is as though
things didn’t quite turn out the way they could have. He brings it
all home when he closes out the A-Side with the six-minute “Big
Clouds.” - recorded to tape and sounding dense to the point of
breaking, while the side-long “Plus One” is the ultimate pay-off
for all that came before, a 21 minute meditation on self reflection
and acceptance.

The Drawing of the Line is a beautiful album that offers the
perfect introduction to Emuul's sound.

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