AMN Reviews: Three Free Radicals x Liis Viira – Atlas of the Heavens [Bandcamp]

Three Free Radicals is actually two people: Minnesota electronics artist Scott L. Miller and Estonian guitarist Mart Soo. Miller and Soo have previously collaborated on two albums; for this third album, they were joined by Estonian harpist Liis Viira. The result is a sound centered within a neat triangulation of sharp-edged electronics, atmospheric guitar, and harmonically centered harp.

As becomes apparent from the beginning, adding Viira to the core duo was an inspired move.  Miller and Soo are particularly adept at creating textural music, setting out shifting densities of sound underwritten equally well by the thick abrasiveness of the electronic hum, drone and feedback as by the reverb-soaked shimmering of the guitar. Soo, in particular, is able to create a brooding ambiance suggestive of empty landscapes: call it the soundtrack to unpopulated plains of the imagination. To all of this Viira brings a harmonic focus that manifests itself in chord progressions both cyclical and irregular, or in ostinatos and melodic lines hinting at modal harmony. In addition, the crystalline, staccato sounds of the harp contrast most dramatically with the denser interactions of guitar and electronics. On a piece like M12 Viira supplements Soo and Miller’s underlying polyrhythms with a set of on- and off-beats of her own, while on Sagittarius she sets the music within the angular frame of an altered mixolydian mode.

https://threefreeradicalsxliisviira.bandcamp.com

Daniel Barbiero