While listening to these tracks one has to wonder if they are the receiver in the title or the transmitter of these tones and moods therein. Each song, while separate, uses an impressive sonic arsenal which overlap into one another in a continuous stream like the abrupt changes of scenes and participants in a dream which don’t seem to disturb the sleeper’s mind.
An audio travelogue into a strange and dark interior world
Receiver by Chad Mossholder is less an album of music than an audio travelogue into a strange and dark interior world. Mossholder’s day job as a sound designer clearly influences his work to a large degree where placement of sounds in the audio spectrum is a key factor in the creation and development of a song. While listening to these tracks one has to wonder if they are the receiver in the title or the transmitter of these tones and moods therein. Each song, while separate, uses an impressive sonic arsenal which overlap into one another in a continuous stream like the abrupt changes of scenes and participants in a dream which don’t seem to disturb the sleeper’s mind.
“Error Drop’s” scratching drones and reverb drenched stabs of sound move easily into the rhythmic wooden crunching of “Can You Hear Me” with its low, hazy background drones and whines like a bowed saw in the middle of an abandoned factory. “A Blessing” opens with a salvo of distorted voices like an infomercial from a TV tuned to Hell where slow, melancholic guitar lines embellish strings and scraping sounds like low tide at the docks on the river Styx. “Listening In” picks up where the previous track left off with low tones and the grating crackle of faulty electrical wires while a static noise laden voice speaks of their mother and deep psychological wounds of childhood as drones build and coalesce into a numinous wall of threatened violence. “SoothSayer” diverges into steely, digital tones and layer upon layer of subtly manipulated noise while a disembodied synthesized voice gives a weather report both sunny and stormy at the same time.
The opening voice on “Self Help” offers instructions to soothe a troubled mind only to betray the confidence implied as a storm breaks across the spectrum while the sounds of metallic carrion birds builds and grows while the sense of foreboding is barely contained by the limits of human hearing. “All Light” recalls more soothing meditation marred by decay and damage where the crackle of ancient vinyl albums and sparse guitar tones stumble and sway over vaguely Asian voices promise the listener that everything will be alright while simultaneously wavering in pitch and tones in a way that suggest quite the opposite. “Sadako” opens with an almost pleasant sound of bowed metal coated in the damp pings and pricks of plate reverb like a trio of strings, piano and electronics forced to perform at gunpoint for demons in a half-submerged abandoned warehouse. “Knock On Wood” shimmers and shakes with icy pointed stabs over further bowed metal tones while vague spirits haunt the edges of hearing with indecipherable pleas and cries for help over the album’s sole consistent beat which never quite reaches a steady rhythm or groove. “The Absolute Threshold of Hearing” opens with stark, distorted guitars in a reverb glaze served over the chittering of metallic insects, as the plumby voice of an English woman appears to list the ingredients for poison or additives to mask a poison from detection. This is a perfect ending to an album which is less a listening pleasure and more like the record of an interior journey into a mind in turmoil seeking relief from its own existence.
Receiver is available on Somewherecold. [Bandcamp]
