Sinter pools is a dark, ethereal and glitchy electronic album with moments of thrilling aspirations and post-modern inspired sound morphologies. A good musical discovery which demands several listening sessions before it could be fully appreciated.
Based in San Francisco, Ionophore is an isolationist, noisy and eclectic experimental ambient trio formed by Jan Hendrich (a.k.a. Qepe), Leila Abdul-Rauf and Ryan Honaker. I discovered the emotionally dynamic ambient world of Rauf thanks to Malignant Records. Consequently I was curious to discover this side project. Sinter Pools is the second offering from the band. A first effort was released a couple of years ago as self-released limited tape edition. The musical identity was somewhere between moody electric dronescapes, cybernetic electronics and seductive neoclassical touches. This new album carries on a similar stylistic direction, maybe in a darker post-apocalyptic mood, with a bunch of minimal and obsessional post-industrial textures.
Rauf provides here a few enveloping and ghostly ethereal vocal lines sustained by acoustic instrumental elements such as the piano which communicate with kinetic ambient grooves. The vocalizations perfectly sustain the spectral electronic excursions and dark waving sequences such as in the haunted “Undergound Man.” The title track is a powerful dark soundscaping inferno made of majestic brass timbres, ritualistic pulsating frequencies and ghostly vocal lines. The track reaches a tranced-out noisy apex in the last minutes. Probably my favorite one on the album. Pieces such as “Sequester” or “Post” are brilliantly atmospheric, discreetly melodious and mysteriously celestial.
Sinter pools is a dark, ethereal and glitchy electronic album with moments of thrilling aspirations and post-modern inspired sound morphologies. Staying innovative, complex and multi-directional, this new release is at the cross between British industrial classics such as CTI or Throbbing Gristle, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Kirlian Camera’s most challenging moments and dark electro materials from Predominance or Fjernlys. A good musical discovery which demands several listening sessions before it could be fully appreciated.
Sinter pools is available on Malignant: digital/CD.
