The Principality of Dustland is a ten track album of true ambience from the Sparkwood Records Label which features drone, experimental and ambient works.It starts with ‘Foghorn’ calling one out into unchartered waters, with but a breeze for a sail. It reminds me of early Tangerine dream. ‘Towers’ has one peering out over the fog from above, in a night world lit by occasional fires, it is a slow minimal soundscape. I feel as If I am on a genesis mission exploring a distant planetary world. Electronics meld with mild distorted reverb laden guitar. ‘Ferrymans Toll’ is well captured with a spacious verb/ delay that suggests a cavernous grey realm of desolation- a silent guide bound only by duty. The bell tolls and we are taken beyond. ‘About the Fog’ sounds static noise, a cyclic drone that suggests a tempo, showing me a merry go round, and a laughing clown face, a remembrance of a yesterday.
‘Waltz’ – features a pipe organ, an industrial orchestra viewed through a looking glass, with mechanical motions of machines, silent, but for the waltz, which gives them a serene beauty. The people have long gone. ‘Pipes’ unifies with a similar tonality, we progress further across this disjointed landscape of phantasms and dreams. ‘Quintessence’ “but not that I have bad dreams” is the only lyric that features on the whole album, a lone utterance amidst a glitch which sounds like it is a record spinning at the end of its cycle. ‘Ticking Hart’– is a very sad piece, it feels like saying goodbye to one near and dear- the tale of mortality that tolls the same for everyone who must meet their end.‘Canticle’ calls us to the last rites in our otherworld- ‘The Principality of Dustland’, but speaks only through sound- no voice is uttered in this principality. The bells solemnly speak the pastors words. ‘The Lantern Room’ is a room on the fringe of a bay set to wash over the Principality of Dustland, it suggests a lighthouse keepers retreat- a man old and weary, putting pen to paper for the last time as he prepares to extinguish the light, symbol of his life.
Everyday Dust has conceived a wonderful conceptual journey album with The Principality of Dustland, that had me engaged from the very beginning in its vast sonic array space and richly evocative imagery. It invites one off into the world of the north somewhere, is this, a passage well embodied. The spirit of true ambience is clear, a fine debut album.
Buy the album here
https://sparkwoodrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-principality-of-dustland
