Curious, precarious and often elaborate in construction, these cinematic backdrops unfold in one fell swoop and retain an intriguing mystique all the way through.
[Release page] It’s clear upon initial rotations that In Dust, produced by Stockholm duo Roll The Dice (aka Malcolm Pardon and Peder Mannerfelt), contains a plethora of ambient-veiled buzzing in the form of orchestral arrangements weaving through analog flares. While this introduction may be an eyeful to imagine, how could anyone really orchestrate ambience in analog form? Leaving it in the capable hands of RTD on their latest In Dust for the Leaf label is more than enough to get these ears primed for what’s in store.
The emotional gravity contained on this predominately beatless affair reveals a hidden bundle of manipulated air-pressure shifts. The opening sparks, sliding through streams of subtlety, are enough to keep non-attentive ears motivated in the darkness. The closing pieces ignite warm analog tones amidst a more well-lit experimental pulse, and it all settles from a dust cloud in the horizon. Writing In Dust off as mere drone or dark-ambient doesn’t do any justice to the isolated beauty and rustic sprinkles of mystery that float to the surface in these passages of elongated oscillations. Curious, precarious and often elaborate in construction, these cinematic backdrops unfold in one fell swoop and retain an intriguing mystique all the way through. It’s an evolving calm that ripples down massaged synth boxes.
Ultimately, In Dust is a lost soundtrack filled with groves of organic electronic ashes from the past. Sheeted in these layers of nostalgia, raw ingredients of form and dysfunction create a sonic maze of extruded finesse blending into a cohesive whole. As Roll The Dice delivers fields of lightly turbulent echoes, In Dust is a quaint album that drafts an exploratory, if not sincere, audio landscape.
In Dust is out now on Leaf. [Release page]
Roll The Dice – Calling All Workers from Roll The Dice on Vimeo.
