Category: AMN Reviews

Despite the title, this album from Kristof Bathory, Scott Denman, and Marie Ann Hedonia is not directly related to COVID-19. Instead, it is a classic sci-fi / horror dark ambient mix – or at least that is what it might sound like on first listen. But like the proverbial Russian doll, Viral Incubation has detail nested inside of detail.

There are more than the usual share of claustrophobic, hazy drones that go a long way toward providing a sinister atmosphere. But where Void Stasis shines – and sets itself apart – is with its use of sequenced patterns and percussion. The former is a roiling blend of murkiness that fuzzily haunts the drones in a way that exhibits a strong sense of disquiet. The latter includes periodic beats as well as more sophisticated arrangements.

But what becomes apparent upon deeper listening is the oddness of these patterns. The repetitions are often not exact and thus seem to be improvised on the spot. This might be due to some international variation in the sequencing / programming, but the effect is to make the album as interesting at a microscopic level as it is as a whole. On the surface, the feel even veers toward techno but there is so much more going on here.

Viral Incubation will be released on March 21 by Cryo Chamber.

At first blush, I assumed that Lumsk was a relatively new seven-member Scandinavian folk / prog / metal band, and that Fremmede Toner was their debut or maybe second album. But upon further research, Lumsk was founded almost 25 years ago, though the band has spent the last decade-and-a-half on hiatus between album three and this, their fourth album.

If anything, Lumsk is a metal band first, with plenty of signature power chords, as well as keyboard and violin. Despite the presence of two guitars, there is little in the way of soloing, and instead the instruments combine with vocals to set forth darkly lyrical atmospheres. In other words, the metal is folk-inflected. The vocals are mainly from Mari Klingen, but certain songs combine her efforts with call-and-response lines from an uncredited male vocalist.

One of the more interesting aspects of the album is how it came about. The pieces are inspired by poems of André Bjerke as well as his translations of works from other poets. The songs are based on Norwegian translations, but also the original English and German versions. Thus, some of the songs repeat lyrics in different languages but the accompanying music is different.

All in all, Fremmede Toner has a modern and energetic feel, more along the lines of Nightwish and Within Temptation than, say, Genesis. The music is of moderate complexity, quite heavy, and tastefully arranged. It is catchy without being cliche and strangely emotional as well.

Andrew Pekler totes a deep portfolio stuffed with experimental electronica stretching across genre. Back in 2016, he visited Khao Sok National Park in Thailand, a bustlingly biodiverse reserve, and recorded audio, some of which appeared on his album Tristes Tropiques from the same year. 

Khao Sok Extension revisits these tapes as a field recording without musical intervention, for indeed the sounds of the wildlife are music enough. For the casual listener, these field recordings appear more aesthetic than forensic, an artistic layering of sounds rather than a documentary report – an attempt to make a real place hyperreal. Myriad cries and roars and crepitations are layered over one another; some soar to the forefront, others recede into soft, staccato drone or an insidious purr. An up-and-down avian trill acts as a kind of leitmotif.

Included in the package is a DVD featuring video shot in the park by Pekler. While surprisingly rendered in monochrome, it is similarly textured and suggestive. With fifty-five minutes of teeming ambient audio and a solid hour of video, Khao Sok Extension is a generous package. It’s gorgeous, it’s sumptuous, and it feels humid.

Stephen Fruitman

Frontier of Former consists largely of dark, hazy drones and long-held chords accompanied by various noises, effects, and field recordings. Whether water, air, bells, crackling, or birdsong, these additional elements somehow only add to the gloomy and ominous nature of this double album’s seven long tracks.

As an example, Comprehend the Duality begins with sculpted static and quietly sweeping synths. This is followed by slow-moving chords atop a rumbling layer of bass. Other tracks, such as Atemporal Shore, employ a somewhat brighter approach, with less baleful droning and birdsong to lighten the mood. But the general approach is drawn to ponderous chording that evolves at geological time scales.

Frontier of Former is a lilting, drifting, and hypnogogic effort that exhibits consistent qualities throughout. As a result, it can be played over and over in the background, with its 90 minutes seemingly passing at a faster clip. Thus, this album not only works for active listening but also would be well suited as a soundtrack or installation.

Chances are the local mill, whether wind or water-driven, would have been the grandest bit of technology a person in pre-industrial society regularly beheld. The music box, the earliest common man-made contraption for conveying “recorded” music to an audience, would have been among the most diminutive. How appropriate to bring these two together.

Maze & Lindholm (Pierre de Mûelenaere and Otto Lindholm) are based in Brussels but traveled to rural northern France to make Carillon sans timbre ni marteau at an old mill.

 The album is presented as the first volume in a series that will explore “compositional processes focused on cyclical time,” an apt temporality given their agrarian surroundings. Although it is difficult to discern what if any acoustic effect the actual setting provides, the duo take the auditory equivalent of a magnifying glass to the mechanism of a music box. Notes struck by tiny tines are looped, dubbed, and stretched into ambient eternity, as is every crank of the mechanism and creak of the box in which it is housed. As the tuned teeth cause the pins to reverberate, chimes ramify as sprinklings of fairy dust and triumphant flourishes, while others blare like warning bells or throw off tiny flares of distortion. The sound is surely enhanced by additional close-up electronic magic, as this take on “the borders of contemporary ambient” renders the physical reality of the source intermittently abstract. The air around it billows out, inhales back in.

As unlikely as it may seem given the cyclical nature of clockwork, there is drama and narrative progression. Somewhat perversely for a lullaby machine, the album takes on a somewhat dark cast as it winds toward an end. Though this can of course be negated by simply starting over, as Maze & Lindholm suggest you listen to Carillon sans timbre ni marteau on repeat.

http://totalism.net

Stephen Fruitman

Pat Thomas proves his versatility once again on this release. Admittedly, WAZIFAH Vol. 1 is a departure even for Thomas, who is known for his free improvisation and many collaborations, as well as for reinterpreting the works of Ahmed Abdul-Malik and Anthony Braxton. Here, Thomas employs the IRCAM TimeStretch software to explore sounds, textures, and colors unavailable by way of conventional instrumentation.

As might be expected by the source of the program, WAZIFAH Vol. 1 has much in common with the output of GRM-based composers and experimenters. The leading track, Wazifah 17 combines sawing violin (and possibly cello) samples into a dense and shifting wall. In contrast, Wazifah 1C has the GRM sound, with musical and non-musical samples used to create amalgams of distorted abstraction with quantum-level dynamics. Wazifah 19W positively shimmers over the course of 13 minutes, with a percussive, fast-paced rhythm and rapidly-changing groups of higher-pitched elements. Wazifah 3 seems as if it is formed from manipulated cymbal flourishes, while Wazifah 10Y is an assertive and uptempo layering of sculpted metallic sounds. Toward the end of the album, Thomas tosses us another surprise with Wazifah 10B, which incorporates non-Western stringed and percussion instruments among electroacoustics.

Though Thomas has been active for over 40 years, I am still exploring his extensive discography and am quite impressed by its breadth. WAZIFAH Vol. 1 takes his art to whole new levels and represents a left turn in the oeuvre of a musician already known for eschewing conventionality.

Sonologyst (composer, producer, and label head Raffaele Pezzella) has reissued this 2016 recording with a bonus track on CD for the first time. The sounds and track titles reflect Pezzella’s fascination with quantum physics, with references to the Dirac equation, the Higgs boson, and more.

Musically, Electrons is representative of early Sonologyst material, more cosmic than dark. Oscillating layers of synth echo in and out of focus with sweeping patterns of mild distortion. These efforts often incorporate high pitches as well as bell-like percussive elements. Some pieces are slower and quieter, with electronic abstractions and experimentation to accompany muted drones.

Nonetheless, each has its own character consistent with the overarching theme. As an example, LDirac = ψ(iγμ∂μ −m)ψ features dappled electronics on a pointillistic canvas, while Zeeman Effect encompasses a long, slow drone that subtlely vibrates beneath staccato synth passages, before ending with sculpted static. The new track, LHC, occupies a similar space, with a roughly-textured drone superimposed upon a shimmering array of white noise and squelching.

Whether you are a physicist, want to be one, or prefer to stick to Newtonian mechanics, Electrons is an appropriately titled release that sonically explores the science and beyond. Very well done.