Further Studies Beyond Decay maintains my view that Sparkwood has a host of visionary artists at their fingertips, as comfortable stringing together grooves that bounce and move as they are weaving cinematic ambient tracks that engage in subtle brain hacking.
Further Studies Beyond Decay marks Everyday Dust’s fifth release with Sparkwood records, and fills a similar role as Multa Nocte and Combinatio Nova, in that it’s a between-full-length-releases exploration of mosswave and rhythm. The album consists mostly of remixes from The Green Decay, Dust’s previous full-length release, though it also features a few new tracks from Dust.
One-third of the twelve-track album is new Dust work which fits neatly into the mosswave canon; that etherial, spacey, breathing sound that can evoke both the serenity of a still lake on a cold and foggy morning and the presence of something dark lurking around the corner, a Lovecraftian Old One, an ancient horror that peeks through a tear in the void and pulls you in with its beautiful, haunting siren song. The remaining eight tracks on the album are remixes from The Green Decay, which remain faithful to the emotion of the original tracks while departing in form, but organically. None of the new takes feel forced—they feel as organic as the rest of the record, but there’s a welcome difference in the individual interpretations of the music.
While it’s not a new concept, having multiple takes on individual tracks from The Green Decay is great. The variety among the interpretations is telling, in that the space left intentionally vacant by Dust can be filled or expanded upon, rhythmic or melodic, or acknowledged with a nod before folding in a wholly different sound into the mix. Whether it’s slick, almost-synthwave synths that Panama Fleets uses to turn “Lichen Chronicles” into the soundtrack of a justified killing in a dark alley in some cyberpunk future, or the three radically different interpretations of “Where Light Fails,” Further Studies Beyond Decay maintains my view that Sparkwood has a host of visionary artists at their fingertips, as comfortable stringing together grooves that bounce and move as they are weaving cinematic ambient tracks that engage in subtle brain hacking.
For me, the music in Further Studies… is creatively sustaining; the kind of thing I like to listen to when I’m trying to corral my distraction-prone self into a space where threads of story come together. It satisfies my subconscious curiosity, that desire I have to look behind me and check if I’m being watched. “Don’t worry about it so much,” the music says. “A thing with many eyes is watching, and it doesn’t really care if you turn around. Get back to work.”
Further Studies Beyond Decay is available on Sparkwood.
