| Orbit Constructions - Androneda (Demon Tea Recordings 2008)By Joseph |
Orbit Constructions
Androneda
Demon Tea Recordings
April 2008
Ambient
Tracklist
1 Eye Of Vecna
2 Quest For The Holy Snail
3 Abandoned Tomb
4 Hypernova
5 Bridge Under Construction
6 Church Of Emeralds
7 Thirteen Kings
8 Lost Spider
I picked this up a few months ago and like many ambient albums I didn't get into it straight away. I was not actually expecting it to be as ambient as it is and my initial listen came in the wrong mood though. This is definitely a mood album. Don't listen to this unless you are ready to lie horizontally in your mind and lose yourself in a dimension of sonic storytelling. It's a very descriptive dark spacey album. Maybe too ambient for some but will be a real treat for others.
1. Eye Of Vecna
The opening track is a nice dark intro to the album. An oppressive drone opens up surrounded by glitchy yet subtle sounds. A very slow deep bassline takes us a little darker and little sci-fi blips give us a more spacey feeling. The spacey feeling grows with the sound of the wind that at times seems to blow a gale. The whole thing gives me the feeling of standing on an alien world far far away from home.
2. Quest For The Holy Snail
This oddly titled number does seem to have a more adventurous feel. It's hard to say how exactly as it's just as ambient as the opening track but it seems to move more under its own volition rather than just float or get carried on the wind. It feels like a walking journey, through village markets and wide open fields passing many strange sights and sounds along the way. This keeps up the spacey feel as I picture an unhurried pilgrimage on a strange alien world.
3. Abandoned Tomb
Here we start with a sample that has a tone like it is out of a horror movie yet with much lighter content like from a documentary. The music that follows is pretty desolate sounding, the soundscape painted for me is not of an enclosed tomb but of an oddly coloured rocky desert with very little life. Creepy bass makes the melody sound threatening, but not immediately threatening more like a patient all consuming threat that has more than enough time to watch you squirm. Imagine being stuck on a long dead world with no hope of escape. That's the picture this track saints for me.
4. Hypernova
Straight away back into space. Whoosh! Solar winds and dust rush past in a cacophony of clicks and clacks and near engine like noises. It's like riding alongside a massive spaceship. The roar of it's engines are distant but the sounds of smaller craft feel closer. As we fly the sounds change subtly. From labouring sounds like from some immense workshop to little wet sounds like the ejection of garbage. Under it all the distant roar of massive engines. Very nice ambient.
5. Bridge Under Construction
Tribal, almost ritual sounding drums hum slowly. The air feels oppressive with the deep dark drone. The strange drum sounds become more erratic and their rhythm more melodic. It's like a battle for the sound. First the ritual plays then they are beaten by more interesting rebels who want to play a more exciting tune only for them to wear themselves out and give way to the old ritual that gives some extra ummph for good measure. The voices of what is probably supposed to be construction workers sounds more to me like battle cries.
6. Church Of Emeralds
From the Gregorian chants at the start to the very church organ sounding melody, this whole track reeks of dark religion. Imagine a church, with degraded looking gargoyles staring down on the gathered congregation. The people offer up prayers to their gods as the organist blasts out the music to carry them to another realm, a realm of chaotic force and energy. Everyday creepy stuff, usual for those yet disturbing for an outsider to witness. This track probably has the most energy in the album yet with a little synth line pushing the music forwards, outwards, inwards. In the latter part of the track I can feel something creeping. Slight static sounds crawl at the edges like some malignant entity trying to claw its way in.
7. Thirteen Kings
A much grander sounding track, take the last track and enter its god's realm. Power and majesty summed up by the melody, soft yet steady beats and rumbling bass. With all that though comes the twisting, like the music has been warped and corrupted. The beats become a little faster and a little heavier but the feeling stays the same. Dark, powerful majesty. Light sounds attack at the end bringing the feeling into a much smaller, compact republic sound. Like boring rebels overthrowing an evil empire and creating a stagnant democracy.
8. Lost Spider
Cries of the Damned, lost souls calling out for aid. Psirens calling seductively. Whatever the vocals in this track are supposed to be they manage to create a creepy space horror feeling. This track is a cross between space ambient, dark ambient and glitch ambient. It is rather subdued and a little anti-climactic but it's a good way to sound off the album which has taken me all through the cosmos and through weird dimensions. Here I seem to have landed in a incomprehensible hell of dark randomness and terrifying demons trying to gain access to my consciousness. The strange static noise I heard in the church is back to delightfully torment me. Very cool.
So there we have it, an incredibly descriptive journey through dark spaces, alien worlds, all too familiar cults and various dimensions of energy and hell. This is one of the best surprises I've had this year as I had no prior knowledge of this act and was actually expecting something more along the lines of psychedelic downbeat or ketamine trance. Instead I was treated to a unique (at least in my collection) ambient album mixing a variety of different elements together and blending them wonderfully. If you are the type of music listener who likes to have scenes painted in their minds from the music they listen to then you should definitely give this a try. |
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October 2007
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