Drone Ambient

Tracklist:

01 Summer
02 Temperature drop
03 You left your breath on my window
04 Rights of spring

This release is a collaboration between Aidan Baker & The Infant Cycle

The rite from the seasons is a universal constant that has impressed and affected humanity for millennia. This has had an effect over the human psyche, temper and spirit that has motivated artists through history to recreate their insights on the significance from these earthly transformations, often presenting these natural phenomena as metaphorical explanations on life and its passing or simply literally describing them as temporal changes with dissimilar spirits, either way seasons have become a complete source of inspiration, where music is just one of the more memorable expressions regarding this matter. From the early baroque of Bach and later baroque from Vivaldi to the multiple romance expressions that found in Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz and Debussy a place to be this topic has been eloquently described and pictured with elegance and beauty by them all, transcending the barriers of time and entropy and finding a place of admiration in the hearts of contemporary men. With modernity, the expressions and forms may change but the impressions and inspiration remain, bringing new courses of action for artists to express their feelings on the subject of the four seasons, setting new angles for this specific content to be conceived. The CD presents a precious bucolic scene of a house in the prairie, very colourful and vital that is an eye catcher, as usual the presentations from Zhelozobeton are minimalist and simple but incredible effective to call attention. The whole CD lasts for more than an hour leaving time for each track to develop and consolidate its message and effect over the listener. The first half of the work originally recorded in 2001 has been already issued previously on Blade records in 2002 as a limited edition called “Rural”. The two additional tracks, previously unissued find in here a perfect complement to be finally issued.

What Aidan Baker and Jim D.Jong (aka The infant cycle) brings in this work issued by the (enthusiastic and specialized in drone) Russian label Zhelozobeton is a modern exemplification on the impressions that the four seasons still imprint over the human soul. Time has passed since the classics and the romantic period, styles have varied a lot, as much as the forms which conforms the construction of the modern music. Aidan Baker & The infant cycle deliver a perspective entirely conceived for electronic devices akin with the character and imaginary of our contemporary epoch. The distorted and unrecognizable guitar spectre from Baker continuously creates endless texturized drones interwoven with a multi organic and mesmeric fluidity, his set is stood out by the uncompromised variant from J.D. Jung that brings feedback generators, samplers, rhythms, a thumb piano, bass and guitar to create a dual construction that exemplifies the course from each season in a very gentle and persuasive progression. The music construction is rather simple, usually starting with one undulating drone that gets richly endorsed by subsequent sets, additional adorns in the form of rhythms and effects and usually transforming in a very soothing guitar jam of alien character. At times the music presents the beautiful transition that you could find in the early works from Pink Floyd or Alan Parsons. Subtle, delicate, psychedelic in its transformation, colourful in its forms and constructions and really touching in its delivery, each track is able to communicate a set of feelings on the listener’s perception, and that is one of its outstanding characteristics. The work really opts for a suggestive approach, enhancing mental images and common perceptions that may find a place for mutual encounter with the listener. The prosaically track called “Summer” its the start of the album, and its vibrant conjunction of buzzing drones and waving oscillations really sets the image of a vast camp crepitating under a radiant sun, while the contours of distant things lose its figures in the hot reverberation, and industrial trait is also present, resounding like a diesel motor in the background of the drone play and multiple panelling oscillation and curious loops apparitions. The evolution of the track is spasmodic, easily transforming the sunny day in an afternoon of pleasant contemplation, the distorted guitar slowly introduces as a floating hum, gradually converting in a softened pink floyd-esque jam accompanied by a foggy blues like percussion and subtle bass lines. The heat finally decreases transforming in a calmed night of peaceful freshness. Very impressive starter track, with a clear accent from the psych rock 60s and smart description of how the summer feels.

“Temperature drop” describes the autumn, the drones are now more slow paced, elongated and distant, transporting the listener to a world where the spirit is able to divagate and perceive without obfuscation, echoes from a distorted acidic guitar dirge appears in the distance, somehow resembling the latent life that nature presents and slowly fades away in the undulation of the melancholic repetitiveness from the drones. This track preserves a rhythm that is perceived in the movement from the drones, and their undulant rhythm, still bringing a sense of warmness and vitality. An element that the icy track “You left your breath on my window” lacks off presenting a gelid set of drones that demarks with their high frequency and contrasted low tones the embrace of winter. In here the drones works without the aim for rhythm, sounding radically vaporous and cold with the guitar simply adhering to them in equal terms, fusing in an amalgam of frozen gestures that solidify a sole structure. Spring manifests in “Rights of spring”, rhythm returns and the undulating loops create this sense of movement, sound elements found in summer and winter are present, such as the still gelid and punctuated ether from the background drone juxtaposed with the fixed loop of the first plane, that sounds like an incessant tumult of light and warm pushing the atmospheric envelope, ready to come in and touch earth once again. The guitar plays a cacophonous sortilege, atonal chords and buzzings that reminds the sound of insects and hives, spring brings life and the duo is able to recreate this feeling!

Excellent work made by these pair, Baker confirms once again his master condition; the forms he is able to create with his guitar in this work are simply unspeakable, sophisticated, attractive for the ear and eerie at times. The company from The Infant Cycle clearly adds to the collaboration a distinctive quality, an expansion and an aura considered in a series of effects and aural enchants that suits well for the summoning of the four seasons and the particular vision shared by the pair in order to create this final conjunction. Recommended work, a must for all lovers of drone ambient, this is a remarkable vision on nature and its effects over the human soul.