The album is a surplus of saturated sonic surprises nestled carefully between atmospheric elements and delicately woven electronics, proving to be a definitive highlight for 2023 and an album to keep coming back to.
Minimalist structures that build and deform
There’s something uniquely special within these audio chronicles from the talented f5point6 (aka R. Cleveland Aaron). Tagged as the soundtrack to an imaginary science fiction film, Clinical Trials “is a ten-track collection and a narrative about power versus the individual; namely, a young woman, Raluna, who volunteers to take part in a government funded clinical trial.” The results are astounding and the overflow of emotive musical forces and surreal ambient transmissions, starting with an epic thirteen minute opener “17 Days and 16 Nights,” reveals the artists’ strength in minimalist structures that build and deform, elevate and entangle—all strung together with a lengthy amorphous drone.
The meditation continues as “Second to the Intended” exudes calming blips and bleeps scattered about a fluttering signal propelling us forward. f5point6 redefines tranquilized glitch-like flares drifting in the margins; tracks like the gauzy fluctuations of “Face. No Face Interaction” and the darker hypnotizing dronescapes of “Mantra” are utterly consuming. Suffice to say that the sublimely smooth layers of “The Others” and microscopic crackles of “Extension Phase” keep us firmly grounded.
The album is a surplus of saturated sonic surprises nestled carefully between atmospheric elements and delicately woven electronics, proving to be a definitive highlight for 2023 and an album to keep coming back to.
Clinical Trials is available on See Blue Audio. [Bandcamp]
