This record is a collaboration between Bosques de mi Mente, who is a classical composer from Spain, and Gargle, a Japanese post-rock duo. Contemporary classical music and post-rock have a lot of overlap, so the collaboration makes sense from that perspective.
It really works too. The music is epic and soaring, with piano and guitar and strings and synths building to slow climaxes and then collapsing into fuzzy noise.
The record is bookended with samples of giant bells ringing, in opener Bell and then in When Light And Motion Collide. Being an American male who grew up in the 1980s, i have a Pavlovian response to the bell chiming that kicks off this record and expect the sound to be swallowed by hard guitars and pained, howled vocals. It surprises me, each time, when Bell veers away from Black Sabbath and AC/DC and instead becomes a light affair of echoed guitar and piano. Despite the surprise, it works.
The bell sound comes back around to finish the album off with When Light And Motion Collide. Here, the bell is an accompaniment to strings, a tinkling piano, reverbing guitar hits, and deep thundering kettle drum. This is a dense, rich tune, and one of my favorites here. A great end to this record.
But there are some other, non-bell-oriented yet still enjoyable, tunes here.
Snow Storm is a lovely piano tune that has some nice samples wrapped around it, the slightly melancholy noise of children playing in the distance. It's well done.
I also really like the end of We Are Running Out Of Time, when, after the tinkling piano fades out, a series of guitar chords chime, echoing faintly. It's a very beautiful moment in a really lovely record.
And that is how i would describe this -- it's pretty music. There are no clear vocals, sample or otherwise, but it moves along nicely. All the musicians here really seem to know what they are doing, and the music is lovely but unobtrusive. That is, you can just let it play in the background and it is a nice accompaniment to whatever you are doing, but when it draws you attention, you see that there is a good bit of depth to it.
Fans of post-rock, take note.
|
