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Albums:
Website:
Contact info:
- Austere
- Box 12283
- Portland, Ore 97212
Reviews:
Here's still another
superlative ambient drone recording from Austere. The CD is
titled Fade and it comes with an all-white CD cover
with barely visible titles on the back cover, and the
aesthetic fits in well with this all-enveloping ambient
music. Unlike their last release,
the excellent Monodia, Fade is rarely very
dark or gothic. Instead, imagine the warmth and glow from a
soft light in the distance as it (hence the title) flickers
and then fades from your view. The music itself is mostly
comprised of washes of synthesizers and undulating drones.
Bearing no resemblance to space music from artists like Jonn
Serrie or Meg Bowles, this is closer to the minimal
recordings of fellow ambient musicians like James Johnson, A
Produce (his non-rhythmic side) and Stephen Philips.
However, Austere carves out their own niche by suffusing the
music with a unique organic unforced rhythm, which is
accomplished through the almost breath-like rising and
falling of the drone tones and washes of sound. "swathe," the first cut, is
my favorite. Those ebbing and flowing warm washes of melody
take me to an alien seashore and lull me into a blissful
state as twin moons set over turquoise water. Next is "lid"
and it's a little darker in tone and much more dronish. The
music comes at the listener in waves. Call and return, call
and return. Underneath this pattern is another rising and
falling drone in a much lower register. Again, the mood,
while not as serene as the first song, is still somewhat
restful. The drones shift occasionally during the
sixteen-minute song, subtly evolving the resonance from calm
to just the other side of wary. Imagine music that ever so
slightly raises the hair on the back of your neck. Not so
much out of fear or apprehension, but more as a sign that
something is in the process of shifting - a storm ever so
slowly approaching, perhaps? "tranque" is the one spot of
darkness on the album and a semi-return to the gothic drones
of Monodia. However, the song is almost anti-lush in
that the droning synth chords seem to be transparent as air
as they echo and fade into the air, lingering just enough to
make the listener somewhat uneasy yet never frightful. Music
to accompany a walk through the fog, perhaps? The drones on
this cut are not really melodic, but Austere has a knack for
creating a beautiful musicality from these stark expressions
of tone. Fade ends with the
twenty-six minute long "aire" which opens with a soft
heartbeat-like rhythm and a short distorted vocal spoken
word intro (I think the words are "Oh, it's so
beautiful....and then some words I couldn't make out, ending
with the final word "dissolving.") The rhythm slowly dies
out to be replaced by music closer in spirit to the first
cut on the album. Shimmering high end synths float on top of
lower drones. The song does elicit a lightness and an almost
upper atmospheric sense of climbing. Occasional louder
synthesizer washes fade in and then out, again with an
almost life-like sense of rhythm. Later in the song, synth
choral effects add a more overt space music texture to the
song, while still later the music takes on a Robert
Rich-style flavor with muted echoed rumbling noises. The cut
ends with some almost celestial-sounding ambient shimmering,
bringing the album to a peaceful conclusion. Austere's music is centered
around drone music that has a pulsing life of its own. Never
harsh or cold, even at its darkest, the music on fade (as
with all the music from Austere I've heard) is created by
artists who understand how to infuse ambient music with deep
beauty and more humanity than you would think possible for
this level of minimalism. Fade may be their finest
work yet. Surely it ranks alongside the best in the
sub-genre of droning ambient music. Fans of that genre or
open-minded space music fans should enthusiastically embrace
this CD.
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Monodia from the enigmatically named Austere is a masterful shot of dark ambient music. How something can be this ambient in the truest sense, i.e. formless, droning, lacking in traditional structure or melodic sensibility, yet pack such an emotional wallop at times, I don't know. The gothic, almost haunting cover picture (a reverse image photo of an angel statue, framed in black) foreshadows the somber, some might even think, funereal music waiting within. The first cut, "Tsouris" starts off with a midtone drone, which builds in volume. Soon, a metallic thrum effect sounds (this same musical effect was used in some scenes in 2010: Odyssey Two, as the astronauts approached the "dead" Discovery). The effect here is chilling, to be sure, but not scary. Some people compare this recording to Lustmord, but I think it's "safer" than that. It's definitely dark, but just as Meg Bowles' space music is deep yet warm, the music of Austere is dark yet non-threatening. Anyway, back to the song. The combination of swirling drones and metallic clangs continues, as each one ebbs and flows in intensity and varies subtly in pitch. The second cut, "Throe," is more overtly "spacy" using strange synth effects blended with underlying washes and drones. The overall effect is less gothic than the first cut, but this is still vaguely mysterious. "Tabescence" begins very quietly (necessitating headphones to hear its emergence from the CD). Ambient synths warble in the background and slowly build into the foreground. This cut bears some similarity to the more minimal work from the darker side of the Hypnos label artists and maybe the bands Spacecraft or Lightwave. As the song escalates, I flashed on the more ambient-style music from the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet. This song does get scary at times. As the drones/swirls gain volume, it gets a little unnerving, especially when some odd synth effects come into the picture. "Thanatos," the next song, really quiets things down a bit. Once again, spacy synth effects, very computer-like in feel, take center-stage. This song is the most "futuristic" on the album and the least organic as well (although, that's a relative statement, obviously). Even with that said, this song could be the slow pulsing breath of a gigantic cyber-organic lifeform (how's that for an image?). There are two more songs on this CD, but I hope I have enticed you enough to investigate this recording. Per the website, this is a CD-R recording (it's very well-engineered to my ears, at least) and is being sold for an unbelievably cheap $4.00 in the US and $6.00 elsewhere. Granted its only about 48 minutes long with no album artwork or liner notes to speak of. But, the recording is absolutely first-rate deep dark ambient electronic music. If you like Lustmord, Coil, darker Rich or Roach, the dark stuff on Hypnos, or others like that, or if you're into EM drone music, this is THE BOMB! Seriously, get to this artist's website http://www.angelfire.com/yt/austere/ and order up a copy of Monodia. I would seriously question your sanity if you feel your money wasn't well-spent! |