It reads as if we are the fog, floating over the bay and through the woods, and onwards to the misty mountains.
A raw exhibit of frosted, humid ambience
Like a low fog rolling in across a remote bay in the morning, Aes Dana’s (a) period. is a raw exhibit of frosted, humid ambience. Predominantly dronal throughout, percussion acts as an accent rather than a focus—sometimes fading, receding and blending intuitively with textural grains and scrapes. Beautifully foreboding, (a) period. fits seamlessly within Aes Dana’s discography, though more in the spectrum of a very specific narrative than danceable immediacy. It reads as if we are the fog, floating over the bay and through the woods, and onwards to the misty mountains—existing as a traveling atmospheric density and washing over multitudes of landscapes.
The compositions throughout are hazily distant yet innately immersive. This is not an album to be played casually without it matching or dictating mood. This is glacial music for a long drive across a mountain range with no one else on the road. Patterns emerge but do not guide. Vistas pass but the feeling of the place is constant and immutably encompassing.
To surmise: this is a soundtrack to a Denis Villieuve modern science fiction film that doesn’t exist (yet). It conjures old memories of Forma Tadre’s Automate but only as Aes Dana could. It is definitively Ultimae.
(a) period. is available on Ultimae. [Bandcamp]
