Genre: Dark Ambient/ Drone

Tracklist:

01 Shipyard
02 Cranes
03 Rubber Skin
04 Anchor Chain
05 iStop
06 Wavery
07 For The Travellers Sadly Walking In Evermist

The title of this work almost immediately brought me a feeling coming from some small sense of camaraderie with Swill Klitch, sole member of Instant Movie Combinations because of a place that is exceptionally special to me personally: a TRAIN yard which is located just two blocks behind one of my earliest childhood homes. I have since early last year been smoking and contemplating in this place, and I know the type of inspiration that bares fruit to an album like this. I had previously reviewed a single track from IMC in my first review for this site, the compilation “Muzyka Voln”, recently released by its sublabel of the same moniker. I was certainly not expecting an entire album from any of the respective artists in the collection. But here goes…

“Shipyard” is a concept album with the many deeper and more obscure shades of the surroundings that gave rise to the tracks and the very inspired names they were christened with. It would be very easy to write about how the tracks don’t take you any place in particular, but this work does not seem to have that intention in any way. It is “Shipyard”. Period. And that is not a bad thing because there is no other place you need to go when you’re alone with these tracks. The tracks are outstandingly meditative, the sounds having a very vivid color for me, sparked by the nature of the aquatic hues of the track names. Have you ever tried to see into the depths at night? You get only the most profound black glassed over with whatever little light is around. And then there are those shades that are coming out of the shadows of the docks, behind the curves of the sides of boats, and even peeking in and out of the crude glitter of barnacles that our artist’s “Anchor Chain” might be adorned with...

As I type this, I have realized how this album has been tinged with some coincidental and personal things; the final track titled “For The Travelers Sadly Walking In Evermist” reminded me of something a friend of mine had told me a while back about trying to find work as a longshoreman. The picture he painted wasn’t too glamorous; the most memorable part of his anecdote was just how depressed the more experienced sea men were. How their faces seemed heavy, reflecting the weight of the work and vastness these men had experienced in their time…

I also find it strange but kind of comforting how this artist has linked up this whole industrial sub genre and themes with the aspects of childhood memory. In “Muzyka Voln”, Swill contributed a work that he had dedicated to pleasant early memories of sitting atop a boiler pipe. Now with “Shipyard”, something seems to be connected… Like I said, there is some kind of camaraderie here.