The split format puts some work from two artists together, you can treat it like one whole album, you can think of it as two different personalities, you can compare this and that, you can count the differences, you can search for similarities, you can find lots of ideas.
The collective experience suggests dreamscapes
The split concept of album sound-craft combines two artists featured back-to-back on both CD and tape editions of the sound recordings. The physical form is a rare one-of-a-kind handmade package containing images and ideas illustrating a dream recollection, and I suspect that this expression of the mysterious is not going to be available from your favorite box store today. The split format puts some work from two artists together, you can treat it like one whole album, you can think of it as two different personalities, you can compare this and that, you can count the differences, you can search for similarities, you can find lots of ideas.
What I hear in the split albums are chance combinations, I am going to guess that neither artist is asked to consider the whole album which adds a sense of opportunity for interpretation. Maybe they did indeed coordinate, there are comparable elements of style and tonality, evoked sensibilities, also choices of instruments that match, and the collective experience suggests dreamscapes that move artfully slowly, with ringing sparkling perpetual echoes. Each voice is distinct. There are no words.
Each format is limited to 50 copies each. The tape release is slid into hand-made, creased, folded and assembled cotton rag O-cards, the CD release comes in hand-made gatefold sleeves with mixed-media collage cover artworks, every design is individual and unique, bespoke and made by hand.
Offthesky — Jason Corder is an experimental/ambient multimedia artist and tutorialist. Over his 20 year career, he has performed both sound and vision at various festivals such as Mutek (CA), CitySonics (BE), Decibel (US), and Communikey (US) alongside artists such as Biosphere, Matmos, Pole, Rrose, and Ricardo Viallobos. He has released a prolific 70+ albums, one of which, Flyover Sound, was nominated for a Quartz award in Paris. He currently resides as Audio Director of the Denver based DireWolf Digital video game studio.
Smooth and haunted ::
The first sounds are smooth and haunted, “Anatomy of Infinity” (8:53) suggests to the constant listener an ethereal probing of the big sky, dark but open, the feeling I get is slow, sparse, and atmospheric. For the next track, “Bright Between Void” (5:21) I am feeling a little higher in the sky, the world out here is a little spookier. There is a difference between the physical event and what we hear. “Temporal Lies” (4:33) exercises the palette of the illusionist, now there are fragments preserving the easy flow thus established with kind attention to interesting details hidden in the sky. Nevertheless, with or without those supposed hidden details, I think it should be said that the overall message of this art object for listening celebrates the unknown and the slow.
Soysea — Soysea is Michele Mandrelli a Producer mix engineer, sound artist that lives in Italy. He works as music supervisor and music editor for the music for media collective 42Stems making music and post production for tv series, movies and mixed media. He’s also involved in other musical projects like the ambient noise duo Mayzena and the post rock band Snow in Damascus! (I assume that the exclamation mark is part of the name of the band.)
The Chinese date is an arboreal delicacy that is native to the Eurasian climate, sometimes this fruit is called jujubes, in Italian “Giuggiole” (6:28). I am hearing slow sustained tones that reveal deepening layers as they develop, enjoying the air infused with electronics, perhaps a piano and chanting vocals emerge.
Ringing drone tones building into a clattering roar ::
Maybe there are words after all, now I think so. Perhaps a pattern is repeating within the drone framework. In the next track I hear new instruments, one instrument makes me think of a marimba with lots of reverb. “Leno” (7:28) might suggest something like weaving twisted pairs. I hear higher pitched woodwind tones, inside a separate soothing progression of tones and changing elements within the simple pattern of the long sustained tones. Now I should know if there are some passing by space aliens who join in, sometimes the groove gets hissy and crackles with overmodulation woven into the mix, at times the crackles turn to chirps, somehow this track ends in a wet cave. I just don’t know.
“Vespro” (6:05) brings the evening, some ringing drone tones building into a clattering roar momentarily until sustaining at a slowly modulating plateau.
The split album concept works for me, I tend to compare this and that, and sometimes I do go back and forth. Usually I just let it play and catch different parts each time through. The music makes no obvious demands and the packaging adds a dimension that I have almost entirely left out of this review so that you can find it for yourself.
Anatomy of Infinity / Oriens is available on Handstitched*. [Bandcamp]
