Genre: Drones / Dark Ambient / Minimal   

Track Listing:

01 Hands Up: Who Wants To Die?
02 Tu Me Degoute!
03 Fahrenheit...What Fahrenheit?
04 Stalker
05 Motherlode
06 Black Dog Dream
07 Clockwork Mantra


Released on 2008, "Structures" has a story behind it. B°Tong's Chris Sigdell, who has worked on this project alone since 2004  got his inspiration for this album from a visit inside an ice castle in Switzerland. The harsh contradiction between the cold and dark environment of the icy castle, and the summer outside.  Come to think about it, indeed the impressive thing about this contradiction in climates is found not in the cold darkness of the interior, nor is it in the normal temperature of the outside. It lies in the structure itself, in the Exo-skeletal hall, whether engineered or naturally created. That still organ that manages to hold within itself a different world from the outside.
 
Begining with "Hands up: Who wants to die?",  B°Tong works with delicate sound layers and manages to bring forth monumentalism as well as fragility. The sudden roar, asking indeed who wants to die, sounds desperate and powerful above the cold layers of sound. Over Dante's gates of hell, the declaration to abandon all hope is positioned for all to see. The frozen castle that gave birth to "Structures" might have shouted the track's title words in Sigdell's ears in a similar manner. Is hell cold? Not for everybody, but we are here to talk about the structure it self, the frame. And this frame indeed grows cold and monumental with each passing track.  
 
Second track begins with a much deeper and uneasing drones. Sounds of crickets giving the notion of night time and a french woman's voice is making it all the more mysterious.  For a moment there I am drawn to the album "Wolf Pact" by boyd rice and friends, but this is much darker and slightly ceremonial. "Tu me degoute!" then transform into the following track, almost without notice, and becomes  a hellish dialogue between alien sounds and various voice samples, and I am quickly lost inside a towering dark forest that shouts at every direction. It then mellows down into a detuned guitar solo, and turns to the next track, "Stalker", which attempts to display an  epic monument.  Slowly shifting between serene and almost holy sounds to maddening, metallic mayhem.

"Structures" seems more and more like a journey, with a general landscape that keeps its features similar from the first track to the last. Yet it grows in shape and in details that are added one on top of the other, as each minute passes. More stones to build the freezing monument that B°Tong tries to shape.  Sigdell's plea for hand raising that occured on the first track and then gave way to the slow and painful road onwards comes to an end with barely comprehensible whispers that are burried under harsh and intense sonic overloads. "Clockwork mantra" gives no way for air to escape the dark and dense solution that lies in the heart of "Structures". One should not be surprised when arriving at this dead end, especially if he or she raised their hands 46 minutes ago...
 
A very powerful album by B°Tong, with  a fine combination of long sound scapes and  sonic events that are dotting the landscape. The result, whether monumental or not, is indeed worth time and money.  With thanks to the label for a very nice packaged album and thanks to the artist for its contents.