The album is at its best when you hear the signature Audiobulb sound of minimalist, at times almost microscopic, glitchy ambient IDM, but there’s also some reverb drenched ambient drone.
Maintaining a minimalist aesthetic throughout
Distant Fires Burning is the ambient project of the Belgian musical journeyman, Gert De Meester. De Meester had worked in a number of genres including thrash metal, rock, pop and funk before finally finding his home with bass guitar driven ambience. He’s also a member of an ambient jazz/fusion collective based in Belgium but there’s not a lot of information about them.
Inperspectycon Vol.2 is essentially the finale to his volume one opus that was inspired by his work as a social worker during the Coronavirus pandemic. There’s already been an absolute slew of pandemic related albums, though (including volume one of this album). So it’s probably best we just skip past the inspiration and get to the music.
To begin with, it is a rather strange format for an album. The first three tracks on the album are originals by De Meester and appear to be the conclusion to the first album. While the rest are remixes by fellow label artists with the subject tracks being chosen from across both volumes. Would this album have worked better as a double album? I think so. The idea of having remixes on an album from a different album (even though it’s a follow up) seems a little disjointed and makes this album feel more like a long player remix EP rather than an actual album. Especially with the club remix and De Meester’s bass guitar solo on track three. More on that later.
The album is at its best when you hear the signature Audiobulb sound of minimalist, at times almost microscopic, glitchy ambient IDM, but there’s also some reverb drenched ambient drone and as previously mentioned. the bass guitar track and the club remix. Which quite honestly, sound like they belong on a different album, and I mean on a different album each. Hence the long player remix EP reference earlier. The irony here being, Anunada’s track is actually a great remix. Alongside the Volume Objects remix, they’re the two most surprising pieces on the album. They have a lot of energy, are very engaging and would definitely work on the dancefloor. Something I did not expect to hear on an ambient themed album.
Despite what may seem like criticism earlier, this album has a lot of great music on it. De Meester’s melodic drones can be beautiful in parts and he’s certainly mastered the mid to longform ambient style with some panache, all the while managing to maintain a minimalist aesthetic throughout. No easy feat, and all of the remixes are excellent and varied, too. The album would have worked better without track three featuring De Meester’s bass solo, though. I think there’s little doubt about that.
A very accomplished selection with a few surprises.
Inperspectycon Vol.2 is available April 6, 2022 on Audiobulb. [Bandcamp]
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