The stylistic range on The Pale Ones oscillates between minimalist, droned-out sonic excursions and heavy post-rockin’ guitar elements.
Coming from Reggio Calabria (Southern Italy) this new project formed by Claudio Begovic offers his first self-released EP freely available in digital format on Bandcamp. We do not know much about his music but this effort sounds promising, with a few unexpected and innovative ideas, playing with the boundaries of various musical genres. The stylistic range oscillates between minimalist, droned-out sonic excursions and heavy post-rockin’ guitar elements.
Softly moving with meditative qualities the soundscapes explore peaceful mind-travels in a quite ritualistic-trance like mood. The opening theme delivers vibrant drone textures for processed acoustic strings, deep electric frequencies and electronic scintillations. It is a darkly religious dronescape, quite repetitive, cinematic and cosmical with reminiscence of Popol Vuh’s epic atmosphere (especially in their two first albums). The 70s krautrock flavor seems pretty obvious all along the album. “The Legend of John L” is a doomy and super heavy, distorted drone guitarscape, sustained by glitch-esque sounds and vocal loops. A rather strange medley around a tripped out psych atmospheric ambience. Key carries on buzzing electric guitar sequences, ghostly vocals in a darkly mysterious vibe. Somewhere between Expo 70 and Beequeen. Some field recordings and narratives also come in the mix such as in the title-track or the floating and sorrowing floating “Mechanics of Leaving.” The closing track is a dreamlike, ritualistic and soundtracky buzzing drone exploration.
This album is ambitious and intentionally tries to conciliate in one strange musical dialogue neo-psychedelic rock, cavernous doom drone and minimal electronic escapism. Curious to hear what the project have to offer in a near future.
The Paul Ones is available on Bandcamp.
