The audio arts are a way of interpreting as well as creating many mysteries, beauty permits more exposure, honest expression can include healing and evoking difficult depths.
Emotions push past the boundaries
To my ears Illusions In Indifference is all about the expressive vocal gifts of the artist, supported by the certainly skillful use of dub (heavy reverb) electronica. Each track is quite lengthy and goes through many evolving changes. Gentle clouds of warming flickering forms emerge from a great distance, the forms change and open into new worlds. I cannot understand most of the words, but the tones and emotions conveyed by the singer’s voice musically work well to express the emotional story, a young shadow that bounces and reverberates across the mind. I feel some tension, some angst, some confusion, some exhilaration, one after the other and sometimes all at once from many directions, offering hope and tools for coping with existential confusion.
The tone is so expressive, “Painted in White Lies” (20:19), suggests a cynical and bitter mood, but keeps driving into more upbeat places. In the heart of the chaos there is calming as the story carries us along, for me there are more layers of meaning to discover as the words skillfully present complex emotions. The presentation is not lost or confused with the missing semantic content or in the close reverberations that echo, almost too thick at times, which is legitimate in dub poetics. Changes bring a sense of bringing on a time to turn again, to start over, there is hope and persistence through all this, change always comes.
The colors are cloudy at first, “Imitating Illusions” (21:07), expanding into introspective reverberation, calming moments ease in and out, chaos is always just beyond, here we are dreaming through the illusions until a new density takes form, the beat comes in and the chaos becomes part of the dance, it all fits into the new instrumental layers change everything as the unfolding progresses. I am rocking back and forth, persistently building a way up. It just gets better and then it changes again, the strength persists through the various musical tours and introductions to the shadows. There is sadness, there is resignation, there is no choice but to move ahead, there is playful release. The music is a strange personal world layered and chimeric, ending with more vocal moments swirling and flickering. It sounds like a resolution is coming about several times during the track, but the song never ends, it turns a corner again. As I listen, now there are more wavy voices from our one singer, right here is a spot where the message is repeated, pleading again and again into the classic dub reverberations.
Ethereal voices like whole villages telling the story of darkness and light ::
The next track grows into a nice simple beat with steam pipes shooting off while the instrumental layers move in and out, “Evolutions in Indifference” (20:19), contains a speaking voice followed by a melodic chant calling through the steamy beat, calling into the void while the keyboard successfully struggles to hold up the sky. Then things change, emotions push past the boundaries and there is a strong finish just ahead that never quite resolves (part of the tension and release strategy), the strings circle about with the chorus, shelter from the harsh life experiences caused by this perception of indifference.
I hear wavy beats and twilight sounds, wails and reverberation, calling the magic hour when the sun is at the edge of everything. Can you feel the golden light? “Sunrise at Sundown” (17:23) brings layers of ethereal voices like whole villages telling the story of darkness and light. At last the whole thing quiets down and floats calmly into the next world, the changes in the tempo and direction come again and again. Listening to Illusions in Indifference is an emotional experience, I am paying attention to the voices of the singer as they flow in and out.
The audio arts are a way of interpreting as well as creating many mysteries, beauty permits more exposure, honest expression can include healing and evoking difficult depths. The overall human experience can be overwhelming, these things merge and fall apart and start to merge again, and the listener is internally transformed.
100% of proceeds from this album will be donated to Child Mind Institute, through which every $75 will subsidize the treatment of a child who would otherwise be unable to receive care—a difference that can literally last a lifetime.
Illusions In Indifference is available on Bandcamp.
