Gorod is music for the hazardous zones in our midst through which we only pass quickly and reluctantly.
[Releases page] Stark black and white photos of concrete overpasses and railroad tracks in pathetically patchy snow. A solitary journey through brownfields reeking of toxic contaminants leached so far down into the ground that the property seems nonredeemable. Gorod is music for the hazardous zones in our midst through which we only pass quickly and reluctantly.
Xladnokrovie 616 comes from the Ukraine. The only information – name, album and track titles – is rendered in Cyrillic script, despite being released on Danish label A Beard of Snails. It seems drawn to the rusting, crumbling infrastructure the Soviets left behind in an effort at sustainable sonic redevelopment. Recording the ambient sound of these ramshackle transport arteries, long, lone keyboard notes fatten up the shrill, windswept rush that sweeps over this no man’s land.
Although this landscape is beyond redemption, Gorod has a morbidly invigorating effect on the listener. Out of the monotonous blare of each, half-hour long block slowly rise wisps of drawn-out melody, the screech of wheel on iron rail synthesized into something sweeter – the majesty of a church-organ, the humble piety of a harmonium. Each track refers to some intangible of the urban non-place – its “Loneliness,” “Shadow” and “Whisper.”
Gorod is available on A Beard of Snails. [Releases page]
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