The record balances engagement and contemplation with a billowing accessible lightness, and reveals Helios at a compelling intersection, composing songs as vivid and three-dimensional as they are characteristically modernist and understated.
Nearly 20 years in, Kenniffs has mastered the signature slow-building emotional arc. Take the golden-hued “Lineoa,” which blooms from a simple guitar phrase to a fully symphonic, climactic closing scene. Ever curious, he welcomes new sounds across the album, like the sinuous flute on “A Familiar Place” and the divine, digitized vocal presence on “Emeralds.” These production choices keep the Helios project from receding into the background, even if the artist himself is private, and the ambient space in which he thrives is often uniquely tied to other activities in our lives. On Espera, Kenniff is a producer and multi-instrumentalist leaning into the rich details, and the vistas he’s surveyed are wider and more captivating than ever.
While the Helios project has fit neatly into the beat-less category in recent years, Kenniff felt a natural pull to pivot for these sessions, embracing downtempo percussion, both acoustic and electronically rendered. Arrangements also swelled with layers of guitar and piano, made familiar with his usual tape treatment giving the material a warmer, closer feel, homemade yet expansive, vibrant yet peaceful. “The textural aesthetic of the instruments was as important as the melody, harmony, or rhythm itself,” he adds.
