Been Meaning to Tell You by Ernest Gonzales
LABEL: FoF Music  |||  RELEASE: February 9, 2010

What might catch you right out of the gate about Been Meaning to Tell You is its simplicity, and just how charming simplicity can sometimes be. Blurring the line between electronic and organic, Ernest Gonzales has made an instrumental album that sounds completely comfortable in its own skin almost without recognizing that there's a world outside of it. The record feels like an intimate sonic diary.

Spliced drum samples and synthesizer lines rest comfortably with organic guitars, drums and bass to create an end result that's equal parts Nintendo, Explosions in the Sky, Minus the Bear and even a little Aphex Twin (at R. D. James' less heady moments). What's truly amazing about this album is the amount of depth Gonzales is able to field in each song with the bare essentials. Synth lines are drenched in old-school 8-bit analog  and the guitars sound like they were recorded with an old Vox practice amp and a solitary reverb pedal.

This sonic palette is coupled with an intense passion that flows gracefully through the entire record. Perhaps paradoxically, the choices made for this album show a professional sense restraint and subtlety. It's not a piece of music that hits you over the head and blows you away. It gives you a few solid hooks with which to draw you in and then it paints a beautiful soundscape around you, in broad strokes, when you're paying attention. Nothing seems out of place.

True, you're not bound to find an abundance of variety on Been Meaning to Tell You; most if not all the tracks fit nicely into the pretty and reflective category. However, I couldn't imagine a better soundtrack to a Saturday morning with coffee or a late-night drive with someone you have yet to confess your love to.


REVIEWED BY NEIL LEVENS
NEIL'S FAVORITE TRACKS: "Falling Asleep to the Glow of the Television" • "Etchasketch Trees" • "Upon the 49th Day"