So that old adage, that you can’ judge a book by its cover, comes into play with this album, quite possibly in reverse − there’ no overt references to Josef K contained within this album by Richmond, Virginia trio Cristal, but the title of the cover art is telling; “Kafka (The Trail)â€. I can almost imagine these brooding pieces providing the internal soundtrack to an interminable time spent battling labyrinthine bureaucracy. Maybe you can take it with you on your portable music device when next you visit the RTA.
‘Yoke’ introduces the album with a deep, resounding drone that is at once austere and reassuring, a touch like my spinster great aunt. Streaming Wisdom lightens the atmosphere up a shade or two, but still has definite overtones of Deaf Center. The third track ‘Mirror’ ends so abruptly I thought that the disc was faulty, but this aside, it positions itself somewhere between the roar of a jet engine, the harsh rush of an Antarctic blizzard, and the muted squeal of a theremin. Title track ‘Homegoing’ has a lightness of touch that would feel at home on Johann Johannsson’ albums for the Touch label, or the less liturgical moments of Arvo Part. The album reaches its creeping-dread-atmospheric conclusion with ‘Dead Bird’; swelling drones and distorted guitar pulses slowly unfurl into a blackened majesty.
All three members of Cristal are credited as playing electronics, and it would take an ardent musicologist, with the inside running on their methodology to discern the individual contributions to the overall sound of this album. There are some strings provided by guest cellist Taylor Burton, adding another palimpsest of sound to the overall “ambience’ of the album. Meandering between moods, Cristal have produced an album that is beautiful and threatening in equal measure, but like many of their contemporaries in the “home listening” end of the musical spectrum, hardly essential; although that might just be missing the point completely.
Oliver Laing
