fydhws captures brittleness within these sonic artifacts with remarkable clarity. While the liner notes illuminate the narrative, sound speaks just as powerfully on its own, mesmerizing through collapse rather than resolution.
Shattered, splintered, worn down, yet carefully assembled from ruin
Such an affecting four-piece suite, fydhws channels deeply emotional abstract ambient propulsion, carrying a message buried just beneath its fractured exterior. Released alongside a short film bearing the same title, од почеток? (From the Beginning?) marks a new chapter for Macedonian audiovisual refugee Kristijan Petreski, now based in Prague.
Sound arrives shattered, splintered, worn down, yet carefully assembled from ruin. Every crack, scrape, and collapsing layer feels intentional, revealing beauty through erosion rather than restoration. The liner notes explain that this EP emerged from daily passages across “abandoned buildings near former workplaces, forests hidden between pipes and concrete, demolition sites a few minutes away from home, and repeated walks through Stromovka Park.” Those environments linger throughout each composition, turning forgotten spaces into quiet witnesses.
“I” begins with sparse crackle and drifting, screeching ambient figures, cautiously introducing a landscape already weathered by time. “II” expands that language through sleek distortion and elongated stretches where moments dissolve, allowing decay to settle into every opening. “III,” while still tethered to what came before, descends through luminous static pulsars as atmospheric modulation steadily disintegrates into coarse textures and fading recollections. Closing piece “IV” suggests fleeting cohesion, though its organic shoegaze edges remain hazy, dreamlike, and just out of reach. Darkness never overwhelms; instead, it quietly persists, lingering behind every movement as abstraction slowly consumes what once felt solid.
Petreski captures brittleness within these sonic artifacts with remarkable clarity. While the liner notes illuminate the narrative, sound speaks just as powerfully on its own, mesmerizing through collapse rather than resolution. Simply close your eyes, or watch everything unfold. Is this really happening from the beginning, or are we witnessing every structure, every memory, every frequency gradually surrender to silence? Regardless, this is a welcome release designed to be consumed from front to back, with each track building (and breaking down) naturally on the last.
oд почеток? is available on stotrojka. [Bandcamp]
