Back from a debut, crushing full-length called Undir Feilnotum (Vertical Form/2002), Einóma (the alias of erstwhile film-makers and producers Steindar and Bjarnar) have come full circle with yet another album of drenching acoustic electronics at its best. Iceland’s Einóma are one of the very few musicians who craft their audio sculptures with precision in every form of the word.
Milli Tonverka (translating to music that lies between) contains a thick sheet of ambient underpinnings while it slithers into the midnight sky. The brooding, digital paranoia of Richard Devine comes to mind while listening to Milli Tonverka. Synaptic rhythms weave their way inside and outside of each beat, dust settles on tumbling basslines, and elevated frequencies develop into fragmented melodies that are curious and chaotic. It’s an equation that runs parallel to Autechre’s recent Draft 7.30 (Warp); atonal rhythms clash against abrupt beats with the resulting groove veering into a flowing panoramic position.
Rather than discussing each track, its structure and orientation, it’s important to note that Milli Tonverka is simply that: music that lies between; Music that encapsulates the senses in its subliminal way; music that filters through layers of earth-shattering electricity; music that is rich, organic and full of life. Such a release deserves widespread listening enjoyment. Fans of Arovane will appreciate the majestic qualities of Einóma’s minimal, atmospheric musical shifting. Such a magnetic flow is clearly represented from start to end, absorbed in full effect in a closed environment with an open mind.
Milli Tonverka stands alone as a highly evocative, inspirational album of deep electronic listening. Stretching through dark corridors of subliminally corrupt digital behavior, Einóma has, once again, planted the seeds for the next generation of constructive musical engineering.
Milli Tonverka is OUT NOW on Vertical Form.
