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An exercise in intriguingly layered murk, Newsfeed Amidst a Miracle on the Head of Swans (7:15) features a whirling phantasmic cloud of detuned guitars, strings, piano notes, percussion, human voice and subterranean rumbles.
Infused with a twisted life force despite being Already Dead, the second track takes a darkly jazzy joyride through some chaotic underworld, with dense trumpet blares riding shotgun. Sound processing releases the unearthly noise patterns heard in
Distance; sci-fi bloops, mysterious rhythms and other unknowable presences make for genuinely strange listening, accompanied by spoken word mutations.
With grittily throbbing beats, Re-Invention gets loose and funky with meandering lounge piano and distant alien synth buzzes.
Throbbing bass and swirling sound mist surround The Long Path where free-floating vocal chords drift in the shapeless mix.
The fluctuating sound strata of Soul Fragments is stirred by buzzing undertones and topped with an organically "squishy" entity.
Brassy waves ripple and Drift, to be joined by streaming guitar squall, bubbling bass and percussive elements, all of which simmer in a percolating soundstew.
Thoughtful spoken words accent the underlying dream-like sound explorations of Geometry of Sleep, a collage of sound manipulation and samples of various sleep-related elements like clocks and alarms (thankfully, no snoring though).
Spirited, though muffled, beats and brass lead into Decipher Me, where bits and pieces of voice are, well... mostly indecipherable amid electronic swirls, drifting haze and pounding rhythms.
A single repeating note of Bross' piano becomes the Eternal Flower around which swells a panorama of glowing electronic growth. Trumpet, drum, samples and assorted effects are blurred into the dense mix which eventually fades away to reveal that single note once again. Animated, glowering basslines pulse through Fiction and are sliced by trumpets, trampled by scattered percussion and threaded through by gangly guitar strings. Dreamier Fact occurs in a lighter, more abstract zone, again utilizing freeform jazz elements, sometimes within a cavernous drone.
One must expect some chaos when involved in The Struggle; random clatter is mixed with mechanical thumps, hisses and beeps, occasionally visited by heavily processed vocal snippets. Closing the disc yet Opening the Water and the Earth (2:07), electronic phrases cascade back and forth in an effervescent wash of synth and beats which glimmers out quickly.
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