grummelig
2018 ended more or less as it had started, if only shifted by a month or so: work on an album to explore new worlds. In this case, noise and bass music. Although the result is not the garden variety.
grummelig
Noise gets explored. As in "noise from cassette tape" (in three of the four types) or "residual noise of an empty apartment at night", or "noise which might inhabit a steampunk starship". Bass also gets explored, mostly coming from modular synths, but also from electric bass guitars (four different ones).
Musically, the album is mainly focusing on slowly moving harmonic progressions, thus essentially making it "ambient". Or more specifically, that odd genre called aggressive ambient.
What happens if you combine audio-engineering tomfoolery with goofy tonalities? Interesting enough, the tracks tell a story if listened to in the right order - which just happens to be the order this album is presented in.
The starting Nichtfarben can't really decide if it's just a noisebed with distortion, or rather a simple three voice ditty. Kausalist then combines dub-style drums (in changing interpretations of a basic groove) with several modular synth things, moving through dangerous tonal terrain. There's pads (in odd intervals) and analogue synth bass drums in Ephemeridenzeit right before the combo of background noise and piano on the title track.Alcubierrres Stimme is bass guitars (several ones) plus processing to make them lower and slower, before we're hit with a slowly disassembling cluster on Schwarzschild.
So which story does it tell? It does tell one. Which might be a different one for you as it is for me. So I'd like to encourage you to go story hunting. And maybe try a different track order as well.
How to get it
The album is available as a digital album download from bandcamp via the player on the left, or directly here.
Download includes a nifty booklet, and lossless versions (FLAC) are in full 24/48 audiophile glory.
The price was set to something nonzero for technical reasons, but will drop very soon now. Talk about bad marketing.
Credits & Acknowledgements
Once again, "everything Straschill".
Not a picutre of the artist again, but rather of a lone microphone which didn't record the artist, who wasn't even there.
