At times there is a frantic beat to guide us off-world into vast, alien territories, and at other times there is a soaring glitchy drone melting into the background, with a melodic steampunk robot that comes and goes, stalking us through the entire voyage.
Territory that is sometimes energized, and sometimes simply endless
Silfurberg translates as silver rock, some call it Iceland spar, sólarsteinn, also known as calcite or crystalized calcium carbonate, and my favorite name for it, the Viking sunstone; a transparent rock crystal, with a characteristic double refraction property, birefringence, historically used for polar navigation and once in the 1820s to illustrate the concept of light as a wave. The music explores various space and interstellar themes that materialize and go along exercising playfully. In my dream I am visiting a crumbling astronomic fossil collection, I hear refraction rainbows, the rhythmic machine framework permits the astounding stellar vista. At times there is a frantic beat to guide us off-world into vast, alien territories, and at other times there is a soaring glitchy drone melting into the background, with a melodic steampunk robot that comes and goes, stalking us through the entire voyage.
Sometimes the glitch sounds like entropy, sometimes the glitch is just strange.
The storyline of the album, and you know that I like to graciously invent story lines whenever I can, is about interplanetary travel and making a connection with the explorers of Earth’s oceans from the 1400s through the 1600s. The navigational power of the Silfurberg crystal made travel in polar regions somehow more assured. This kind of navigational tool will no doubt apply to conditions in the remote future.
“And Yet It Moves” (4:36) is a phrase attributed to the Italian mathematician, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who explored outer space using his telescopic instruments. In 1633 after being forced to by the church to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the Sun, legend has it that Galileo muttered “E pur si muove” (“And yet it moves“) or ‘in spite of what you believe, these are the facts.’
Skipping about in a machine driven pulse ::
This is what I hear, the first song begins with a grand and frantic contrast, one melody is slow and regal, the other is animated and energizing, skipping about in a machine driven pulse. The regal elements wander into sagging portraits of glitchy nostalgia, the story is “Interplanetary Transport Network” (4:12), industrious and playful constructions animate and build passionately upwards into empty cosmological vistas and ultimately journeying ever outwards into the sublime. I am still thinking of old science fiction movies whenever there is a flutter on some notes, and a strange melody that speaks of stevedore robots and deep space. The third track is “World Line” (6:13) and the beat is monotonous in places, but such is distant travel, relieved for interludes, but the territory is awesome. Sometimes the story gets more dramatic, imagine a singing operatic robot leading an epic tour, pause to wonder as the path goes through changes, by the mid point everything is different in places, but then the melodic beat picks up and brings new colors and dimensions, new instruments.
More new things happen, collapse and resumption, the journey is persistent through all the changing elements, “We Take It Into Space” (5:49), going from a basic pulse up into the mystery out there, the pattern builder, next into the big old cathedral organ in the sky, contrasting the longing to feel the Earth’s gravity, with moments of glittering, tranquil calm away into the void ahead, and finally returning to conjure the claustrophobia of outer space.
Brutal pounding, then it changes to a stark framework. The brutal comes and goes. “Killer Electrons” (4:52), featuring tempo changes that struggle and attempt to take over but the primary pounding beat will not give away. Feel the tension and power, abrupt breaks into space and some glitchy choirs then back to the pounding, redirection and return, and the machine glides into the future ahead.
What waits for us out there? Our ancestors spent lots of time watching darkness with distant dots, mostly looking in one direction, up above. Future travelers will have darkness with distant dots in every direction. “We Live To Look Out Of The Window” (4:35) brings a melody at angles, breaking into new territory regularly.
Breaking into new territory regularly ::
Next, the feeling is of wandering free, without borders, then becomes maybe a buzzy dialog between different machines. “Pathloss” (3:31), and eventually things get worked out by the end of the track and all is peaceful in our corner of the galaxy. A ray of unpolarized light passing through the crystal is divided into two rays of perpendicular polarization directed at different angles. This double refraction causes objects seen through the crystal to appear doubled. The Silfurberg crystal was used to find the Sun in the open sea on a cloudy day or at twilight, a handy skill if you are stuck in mid-ocean heading into the polar regions. Imagine how much of a relief it would be to locate the Sun on a cloudy day using that crystal, “Silfurberg” (6:16). The endless sky surrounds the traveler through the large territory up there, musically there is a transition to a new place, just pull back and it all fits into the original framework, a very clear glint offset from the Sun by an acute angle.
For the last track there is a slow odd pattern progression that builds into the black, builds into the unknown, “Into The Bulk” (3:52) and the sound finds me thinking about ominous, brooding textures, dissonant string clusters and glitching/pulsating rhythms.
The journey is long, through territory that is sometimes energized, and sometimes simply endless.
Modified Toy Orchestra (United Kingdom) endeavors to rescue children’s electronic toys and convert them into strange new instruments, they find new connections hidden within each circuit and reveal new sounds exposing the surplus value of redundant technology. All the music on this album has been made entirely from small toy keyboards, modified and circuit-bend vintage Casio and Yamaha synths.
Silfurberg is available on Bit-Phalanx. [Bandcamp]
