Continuing his evolution from a basso microtone and glitch artist to a cinematic
soundscape artist, Mathis Mootz builds on the widescreen vision of his previous
release, War of Sound, with the Middle Eastern flavored Aswad. His starting
points are the epic sandstorm sagas of Muslimgauze and the dark ambient
horrorscapes of Brian Lustmord. He adds his recognizable microtones and glitches
before stirring in heavy percussion — slow, heavy percussion. It’s not just
ambient world beat, but atmospheric beats felt right on through the tectonic
layers. If there was a film to go with the soundtrack of Aswad, it would have
the cinematic widescreen epic feel of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and the
pulp adventure and special effects thunder of Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy.
“Sifer” opens with Hellraiser-esque howls of noise and terror as Mootz states his
intent clearly and quickly: M2 is evolving, twisting and changing
like a preternaturally charged genetic mutation. He leaves the door open for
tiny squelches of deep space beats, little bursts of pulsar noise, but the
overwhelming sound is one of heavy, massive terror moving through subterranean
chambers like voracious biomechanical steam engines roaring towards the surface.
When the beats arrive, they chatter along in a theme of pursuit. “Tahat”
engages us with the Middle Eastern flavor, opening with the drip of water at a
verdant oasis and a rattle of gourds filled with pebbles of sand. The stringed
instrument and the hand drums begin to layer themselves over a persistent sine
curve. The tracks of Aswad build, starting from simple instrumentation and
themes into monolithic structures of textured sound. The individual elements of
“Tahat” weave about each other, building an intricate sonic tapestry like a
finely woven silk rug.
“Khalast” blows towards you like a distant sandstorm, rumbling in the distance.
It brings with it pipes and drums and a voice born out of the endless dunes of
the desert. Not as bombastic as some of the other dramatic pieces on Aswad,
“Khalast” tempers the stomp and thunder with an ode to the tiny ecological
systems which strive to survive in the desert. The female voice of “Khalast”
evokes a powerful yearning for water and life, an invocation for the cooling
winds to bring moisture as they sweep across the sands in pursuit of the setting
sun.
Mathis Mootz thinks on an epic scale and his music reflects this grandiose
celestial vision. Aswad brings his pulsar glitch music back to earth and grounds
it deep within the sands of the Middle East. Aswad lands like a meteorite in the
desert, fusing all the heavy ions of its core with the endless sand and
whispering wind. The shockwaves of Mootz’s impact in the Middle East ripples
throughout the region, a sonic tsunami that blends everything together into a
gale force collision of slow percussion, micro-glitch noises, and ethnic music.
Excellent.
Aswad is OUT NOW on Ant-Zen Records.
