There are plenty of differences between the last two LP releases from experimental ambient artist CoastalDives aka the solo project of Casey Cooper. The discrepancies between 2018’s All Small Bodies (a score for a short film by director Jennifer Reeder) and the latest CoastDives release Next Light range from as simple as the running time: the former clocks in at 15 songs over 22 minutes while the latter is a 36-minute ambient tour de force. This progression seems natural, as right before releasing this project Cooper had worked on a score for the psychological horror movie Night’s End and has even said in interviews that his creativeness expanded while stretching out and creating dissonance with the score. 

There are a few moments of intimate ambience before we’re sucked in by padded, curving synths, dancing delicately as if they’re guiding a movie scene. The slow builds, moody aura, and soaring orchestral sounds on the album’s opener “Dark Spots” give you enough to focus on in order to keep you hooked through these seven CoastalDives tracks. “Dark Spots” moves like the climax of a movie, and as you listen through the rest of the record, you’ll find out that the entire composition moves much like the culminating act of a play. 

“Splitter’s” arpeggio synths, rushing water, and faint winds paint the picture for the rest of the track. The climatic urgency is still there, but it’s almost as if we’re in an entirely different scene and location. This bodes well for the project in its entirety, with it being ambient in nature yet requiring your entire focus as if to not miss the intricate details of a scene. The synths on “Next Light” move like a staircase, one leading to a more blissful existence yet still twisting and turning in unexpected directions along the way. The soaring drones of the album closer “Reservoir” will guide you through the end of a very active listen. While no one song is particularly similar to any of the other six Next Light tracks, they do carry similar artistic properties. While there is a lot of eerie emotional dread packed into the early parts of tracks such as “Splitter,” “Rewire,” and “75.”

I happened to consume a heavy dosage of experimental ambient DJ Shlohmo in between listens of Next Light. The active ambience and dark textures had me calling back to Shlohmo’s 2015 release Bad Vibes. It’s easy to sink into your seat and get lost in records like Bad Vibes and Next Light, but that’s not to dismiss the attentive qualities of these LPs. That is to say, the experiences are ambient in nature, but the rises and falls and twists and turns of these records will lead to more active listening than, let’s say, guided meditation. 

More so than any other element of Next Light, the cinematic intimacy of the latest from CoastalDives resonates most profoundly. Songs like “Dark Spots” and “Reservoir” hit on the same themes (dystopian synths that could either go down a path of serenity or chaos) but evoke different emotions (confusion with the former and triumph for the latter). Cooper has been crafting scores for some time, teaming up with Reeder on some of their short films prior to scoring Night’s End. It’s hard to not hear his work with Reeder’s projects spill over into Next Light. 

Follow CoastalDives on Instagram.