Ekvilibrium throbs with a tincture of the old, its fairytales unfold with a ceremonial dimension, replete with decorous passages and maudlin overtones. Dull thumps and rattling percussion tumble in syncopated cycles on the opening piece, ‘A Symmetry’. Harp-like notes add splashes of tone color and arrhythmic sprinkles of static fill in the empty spaces, ensuring the track realizes an outwardgoingness, an off-kilter, mildly cosmic persona. ‘Evolution Of Waters’ is another dense yet mutable collage of sound. Marked by careening, stuttering beats and oozing string arrangements, all led by preening keyboard lines, the spacious melodies and basic skeleton is soon subsumed in this indistinct mass, which comes to be suffused with a certain laziness.
In a paradoxical manner, then, it is on account of Sigurosson’ emphasis on the imaginary that the proceedings lack any sort of oblique intrigue. There is no distinction here between the real and the imaginary, and it’s much to the albums detriment, as not only are there no great revelatory moments, but the pieces only have room for an orbital recurrence of generalized models. Even after the lofty peaks of ‘Winter Sleep’, the valley which follows, although less full of unnecessary knick-knacks and varying textures, is still very much a cosmic ballad that is pretty rather than beautiful, and suitable for being decoded rather than received. Much of this sprawling album, insofar as it is radiant with its own fascination, is frustratingly distant, and lacking in depth or weight.
Max Schaefer
