Immediately you are struck by this album’s insistence on water and other field recordings, recorded and molded into beats and other sonic elements. That it takes sound of a sharp high end tones and persistently presents them to the ear and remoulds them into differing shapes as they decay or play out over time. It creates a warm environment, almost a bright metallic soundscape for the ear and does not necessarily seek a narrative form but merely a presentation of sound in space. Or at least that is the first track ‘Wailing corpuscles’. Then it launches into a glitchy downbeat meandering title track that slowly gathers pace and brings in the gleaming metal sounds that sharply scrape the ear while playing mostly in the lower frequencies. ‘Sundance‘ is a slightly disturbing thumper with chants and weird off kilter moments before moving back into the central almost trance like invocation culminating in a saxophone driven explosion, water respite as organic ending. ‘Giants’ a burbling cacophony, accentuating the brass and chimes in a complex melange. ‘Don’t Give up the Ghost’s brings on tribal rhythms, along with a wind instrument played off key, chants and crowd noises, emphasising the folkish elements of this high tech excursion into a warm social decisively joyous number. ‘Langoliers’ a darkly insistent number creates the center of a forest, bird call and all, whether as a field recording or ersatz. ‘Mardi Gras’ lives not to it’s namesake but almost brings on a funeral tone as it summons a depiction of a melancholy amongst the crashing drums and wailing horns. ‘Common Wealth’ has an attack machine like beat, warbling stereo high end almost game noise melody, brings in a bass beat and wistful female vocal invoking the questions of endeavor. ‘Lomavatn’ again centers the water beat and seagull call as elements of the construction adding electronic tones extended into drones, before crashing in the beat and saxophone meat of this jazzy organic floor number. ‘Swoon’ starts of as a low key ambiance with cycles of samples building up the tonal space, then crashes into a soft scratched out beat with accompanying glitched out flourishes as if imitating mobile phone interference. ‘Blck’ isolates tones and plays in a minimal field slowly building up a form that can be easily taken as an electronic template for organic experimentation. ‘Vultures‘ brings on the warm fuzz ambiance, all low tones and organesque somber feel with slightly disturbing touches at the edges.
‘Sweaty Psalms’ is the first album by Icelandic musician Úlfur Hansson, a touring musician of Jónsi (Jón Þór Birgisson of Sigur Rós). It was originally self-released in 2008 and it’s success underground has seen it’s subsequent release on Mille Plateaux, known itself as a forward thinking label through it’s numerous incarnations. The album successfully holds an organic feel and can be seen as playful although there is a slight trickster edge to the side of the fun, with dark elements lurking amongst the play of tones.
Innerversitysound
