penumbra: skandinavien

pen-s.jpg (12k) penumbra: skandinavien
(Iris Light - 2000)

penumbra is one-half of zoviet france; though which half is never revealed... and that's only one of the mysteries of skandinavien whose assorted sonic ear-trips go both to previously unheard spaces as well as to more-natural atmospheres. New textural fabrics are woven from everyday soundsources recorded in Skandinavia...

An obsure thrumming radiance is infiltrated by quiet everyday-sounding human activities as welcome to skandinavien (5:28) readies for take-off; a multilingual stewardess voice make this apparent in her standard spiel. The large-scale droning undulations of deep listening ripple on several layers, adorned by various forms of unidentifiable electronic occurences, bassy thumps and eventually, a self-replicating female singing loop. Warm fuzzy emanations drift despite it being another rainy day, though all is soon enough pelted with flanged/panning beats and softly sizzling fluids.

Weirdly twirling bleeps and a mechanical rhythm course through the steady hums and electronic whispers of trance-inducing input from origin. Human noise and other sounds are replaced by the fizzling streamers and robotically perky beatsystem of a week in the black box; assorted industrialized outbursts are applied to the repetitive main motif. Blurred cymbals shift into living on the borderlines (22:13) followed by unnaturally warbly birds, abruptly pitch-shifting tone-strands and hyper-echoey medicine-man chants which kaleidoscope into the distance. Cymbals patter into silence after 10 minutes; two minutes later, field recordings from the beach fade in, accompanied by a metallicly tapping syncopation. At the 18-minute mark, apparent silence until the track's end.

While unpredictable and inventive enough, skandinavien's obtuse soundscapes operated mainly at the "wallpaper" level in my ears, probably due to a certain amount of innate repetition. penumbra's generally low-key explorations still acheive an overall 8.2 for delivering new sonic mixtures to light.

Check for yourself at Iris Light.

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This review posted March 28, 2001

AmbiEntrance © 2001-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).