A sojourn through Praveen Sharma’s native village in India brought him a wealth of field recordings which amount to nothing short of a completely involving world. The ensuing arrangements brim with the excited expectancy over what these recordings mean with respect to Praveen’s own ongoing narrative. In the album’s brief lifespan, there thus arises agreeable melodies that conjure up a range of extra-musical associations and visceral power. See the burning energy of “To Scale”, its spiky purposefulness as the increasingly frenetic percussion propels ever-forward through a world of errant noise, dribbles of feedback, and sharp digital rumbles.
Benoit Pioulard also adopts well to the nature of the proceedings. His husky baritone doesn’t intrude and is used sparingly. It takes significant shape in works such as “Embers”, against a harmonium drone, fuzzy guitar tones, a nostalgic aura of old-time electronics, and scraps of rhythm, but it’s one element among others, and often adds to the hymn-like atmosphere of these compositions. “1991” brings things down to a delicate filigree of woolly textures and other audible scratches and scrapings, before the closer, “Chiaroscuro”, bores a hole in the sky with a rush of nocturnal noise and Pioulard’s chanting in a moment that verges on heavenly hysteria. Music to feel right down to your bones.
Max Schaefer
