Miller + Fiam - Modern Romance
[Expanding Records]

Modern Romance is a quiet album of silky soft electronica. Simplicity and minimalism are key to Miller and Fiams' sound, but this sometimes obscures them and leaves them swamped within an already bulging genre.

It is a hard slog to reach a grounding of familiarity with the album, but once reached is well worth the hard work. As the ripples of first listens settle the tracks are transformed and emerge as clean, well-structured and incredibly subtle.

Jazz is a solid influence upon Miller & Fiam, but this fails to resurrect them from an unfortunate sense of obscurity. Looped pianos and double bass feature in most tracks, and are arranged lightly around sparse programmed beats, all punctuated by acoustics and cyclic strings.

Modern Romance is too sparse to make much of an immediate impression, without any particular defining features. It takes work for the sounds to settle, but is very much in danger of slipping beneath the radar, lost in the myriad of similar ambient electronic projects.