2008, music: Æthenor
Æthenor
Betimes Black Cloudmasses
VHF, 2008
Æthenor comprises Vincent De Roguin, Stephen O'Malley and Daniel O'Sullivan as a core trio, with additional guests. The music tends primarily toward the blackened soundscapes of O'Malley's various projects more than the more structurally formulaic works of De Roguin and O'Sullivan (Shora & Guapo, respectively), but Betimes Black Cloudmasses (a title that turns out to be a pretty apt description of the sound) still isn't what I would have expected from a trio like this. The opening bass pulse, a buoy amidst echoing drones and wobbling organlike electronics, creepy yet innocuous, leads to a false sense of familiarity with the sound. After four and a half minutes, it's suddenly halted and replaced by clear electronic sustains, and a couple brief attempts at its return are violently rejected by the sudden percussive appearance of improv drummers Nicolas Field and Alex Babel. It's these two who proceed to guide the album, dropping sudden attacks and flutters and making the sonic terrain generally unpredictable and dangerous. I frequently find otherwise enjoyable albums ruined for me by an insistence on timekeeping, particularly in the realms of metal, where the inherent camp of the metal drummer undercuts much of the possibility of overdriven guitars and blackened aesthetics. All that is rebellious or subversive about the genre is called into question through its rigorous adherence to standards, particularly from the drum throne. A freer approach facilitates surprises, while not tethering the drift of sound sliding by above.
The second piece opens with Field and Babel jangling away up front, pushing gasps out of some bladderous device, before turning more violent and tripping some siren of guitar, which builds with an increase of cymbals to a release of swirling dampened chimes. Here, as in other sections throughout the album, it's nearly in the realm of free improv, and I wouldn't have been at all surprised had some extended saxophone technique suddenly cut in. Instead, there's a brief twitch of vocals (supplied by Ulver's Kristoffer Rygg), light enough to be barely noticable, that present a human element all the more effective for its subtlety. It's minimal enough that it remains environmental rather than authorial; it's well under control of the music. And this in turn slips into something more sonically familiar, looped and nearly melodic and engaging a full spectrum of sound, but nothing stays too long. Æthenor seem to be masters of the dissolve, and a few minutes later in the track you're in a totally different space, quiet doppler sweeps across the channels with airy synth up top, but again, the percussion never lets anything get comfortable.
The third track opens with some dueling squibbles between drums and high keys, but the trio's focus on atmospherics never lets it stray into the silliness that might entail in another setting, and they quickly calm things, if momentarily, to spare plucks of minor hum. It's the quietest track on the disc, as the storm of the second piece moves away, little squirts of sound emerging like birdsong and an etherial melody rising up through heavy reverb.
Given the trio, it's surprising how little metal or drone actually exists in the recording, and it's much to their credit that this is far more effective at perpetuating an atmosphere of dread and solitude than a more traditional approach could be. I'll be looking forward to their third release, hopefully late January '09, and seeing what they bring to the table while enlisting David Tibet.