A cataclysmic and superbly crafted two-chapter audio avalanche that finds glimpses of light in the darkest of spaces.
An unrelenting beast of raw electronics
Marking his fifth full length studio album, Gianclaudio Hashem Moniri (aka Plaster) splits Obscura—a fifteen track album—into two parts: A and Omega. The results are exploratory and magnetically refined sculptures of sound. Part A opens with splattered bass, beats, and heavily drenched mayhem on “A_Macte Animo!,” its electro-industrial pulse operates at full speed with saturated vocals breathing life into an already large-scale opener. While darkness pervades, Plaster twists his audible ideas into fractured low-end rumbling and dystopian soundscapes. The title track releases scorched synth swells as the slow-motion soundtrack and technoid clusters of “A_Fiat Lux” and “A_Tenebrisdeep” hide in the trenches where mangled modular machines synchronize their sonic flows. Obscura packs a punch; an unrelenting beast of raw electronics and powerful industrial mechanics.
The second half of Obscura (Omega) excavates even darker realms where ambient motifs ebb and flow as evidenced on “Ω_Orior.” The beauty tucked between melodic drones and floating textures (ref. “Ω_Testis Temporum” and “Ω_Mater Dolorosa”) are utterly surreal as sharpened post-industrial edges spark on tracks like “Ω_Gutta Cavat Lapidem” and “Ω_Dux Femina Facti.”
It all comes to a head on the blistered and baffling modular transmission of the closing piece “Ω_Ibi Deficit Orbis.” Its LPD-like sound structure and glitched neo-psychedelia wanders across the landscape with astounding sonic detail mudded by modular master caster, Plaster.
A cataclysmic and superbly crafted two-chapter audio avalanche that finds glimpses of light in the darkest of spaces.
“Dedicated to the feminine world, to the death of Mahsa Amini and the following protests in Iran.”
Obscura is available on Textvra. [Bandcamp]
