They float somewhere between the goth rock sound of big names like Bauhaus or The Cure and the darker side of industrial/EBM. The songs are true to the old ways, featuring throbbing basslines and a cold, echoing guitar and drum sound. This debut release from Brazilian one-person, post-punk/goth act Old Machina is the perfect balance of songcraft and production. But if a road is there, and it leads somewhere good, it’d be foolish not to take it. Where we’re headed, though, isn’t what you typically think of when you see it. Even without knowing that this was an element of a visual installation, Notice the Direction of Fires is a profoundly moving work.Īs the yawning portal closes, we’re back in the warm embrace of our old friend, the #ambient tag.
Of course, listening to this will provoke almost anyone to look up the visuals that it was meant to accompany, and Ourahmane’s art is definitely a part of the text here, but it is not essential to this listening experience. This is abstract synth work, but these “earthly” touches serve to ground it, making it more visceral and immediate. It’s these elements inserted just at the edges of the work that give it its character. In the distance, we hear the sound of a train. Early in the composition (somewhere around the 16-minute and 30-second mark), a disembodied voice, somewhat buried in the mix, reads prayers and scriptures.
Yawning Portal has created a flowing soundscape using synthesizers and sampled field recordings ranging from light, chiming synthesizer arpeggios to ominous, ponderous tones that deliver a hefty sonic weight. Yawning PortalĬommissioned for Algerian artist Lydia Ourahmane’s multimedia exhibition Survival in the Afterlife, this hour-long soundtrack is haunting. But those are nice, so we’re going to stay in that general area for our next stop, a piece created to accompany a visual art exhibition. There’s always good stuff waiting for you in the #fantasy tag, and it’s not just synthesizer soundscapes. This album is truly a phenomenal achievement and begs to be revisited again and again. It begins with lightly plucked strings, adding elements to the mix, climaxing around minute 11 with a moving orchestral march that resolves into sustained chords. The album’s centerpiece, the 16-minute “Meaningless Web of Ways,” is frankly a masterpiece of the dungeon/fantasy synth genre. The bombastic “Older Than The Gods, Older Than Light” is the sound of a march through dark chasms, with unknown dangers possible in every shifting shadow. Layers of synthesizers using multiple voices (horns, strings, guitars, sampled field recordings, and booming drums) overlap and entwine to create a towering effect. This album is cinematic in scope, conjuring clearly defined environments in the listener’s imagination. From the chant-like vocals that open A Lantern Swathed, you can instantly tell you’re in for something special. Pre-order buy pre-order buy you own this wishlist in wishlist go to album go to track go to album go to trackĮrreth-Akbe’s 2020 album The Immanent Grove is excellent, but the jump from that album to A Lantern Swathed is a huge one.
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