This album has a keen tendency to have a touch of the dramatic about it, as if the music once acted as the soundtrack to a forgotten, obscure film found on a nondescript VHS discovered in a grimy thrift store with no record of what it is or where it came from. Yet such information becomes irrelevant as the album persists to convey a sense of otherworldliness and immersion compelled through the power of its own mystery.
Heezen’s Abandoned Memory is aptly named. As I listen, I am transported to a menagerie of vivid locations, sensations and experiences, each one unique and vague, yet all influencing my imagination towards a place unfamiliar that is simultaneously riddled with an air of nostalgia and wistfulness. I have been here before, one may ponder as the stirring, organ-like synths of “Bologna” climb out of equivocal elements of background noise and into an impassioned flux of whirling synths, blips and textures that emanate from the furthest reaches of an unencumbered star system.
Yet, despite this abstract setting, “Bologna” maintains, like much of the album, a thoroughly grounded and earthed aesthetic, attributed through Heezen’s attentive use of found sound, field recordings and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, all that offer a thoroughly delectable “grime” heard throughout the album that presents an ambiguous and enticing atmosphere. The deteriorated recordings from the 1960s found with this reel-to-reel, and subsequently integrated delicately into the music, enforce this cryptic and mysterious ambiance.
In the pensive, shadowy “Automat,” I am thrown into an unusual room filled with strangers masqueraded in finery of an older age, moving abstractly to augmenting plucks and weaving tonal fiber, as my vision distorts in grey and sepia. Upon the conclusion of this archaic visitation, I am gliding along wide mountainscapes in the growing dawn of a cool autumn day (undoubtedly imagery intensified by the album’s artwork), as the pale grey shadows of “3 hrs” gradually twist into magnificent shapes of a morning conviction. The ever-growing, ever-expanding rays of a deep gold of daylight consume the earthly formations, and we are greeted with a divine amber glow, all the while there is something in the air that breathes so organically, and every inhalation and exhalation brings new life into an environment existing beyond the very concept of age.
The title track of this hauntingly phantasmal chronicle acts as a firm representation of the record’s earthen sound. Driving textures that build with an undoubtable pace of esteem and reverence blink franticly with anticipation as swells of expectancy and suspense surround the ears. The yearning for some form of a climax is not misplaced as Heezen’s elegance pulls us up to the summit we have been longing to reach in a distinctly graceful manner.
Revisiting the earlier descriptions of a nostalgic melancholy and reflection, this album has a keen tendency to have a touch of the dramatic about it, as if the music once acted as the soundtrack to a forgotten, obscure film found on a nondescript VHS discovered in a grimy thrift store with no record of what it is or where it came from. Yet such information becomes irrelevant as the album persists to convey a sense of otherworldliness and immersion compelled through the power of its own mystery.
It is worth noting the wonderful sequencing of this album. It is clear much has gone into the overall fashioning of Abandoned Memory, far beyond that of a mere collection of tracks. Rather, it is most certainly a journal of adventure, romance and mystique that does not neglect to seize the listener at any given point in time through its well refined climates.
As the album reaches its close, “For S&F” presents us with moments of reflection on its ephemerality of imagery and depth, pensive and weighty in conclusion, yet juxtaposed with a calm, purifying light. As the slow climb of the track reaches its gentle pinnacle, I find myself drifting along on my back in shallow waters that gradually move out towards sea, to be met with the deep glows of a dusk that is ready to welcome me with open arms, carrying me towards uncharted lands where the next chapter may be waiting for me.
Abandoned Memory is available on Feutlab digitally and on limited edition CD.
