This is chilling material, haunting and lonesome. An album of introspection, of reflection and rich textures.
In the age of glass and sleekness it’s interesting that modular synthesizers are becoming more and more popular. It’s kind of understandable. It’s the antithesis of the laptop or tablet. Compact versus colossal. Tap versus tactile. Digital versus analogue. There’s also the sense that within the wires, patching back and forth, that the process is more like playing an instrument (in the traditional sense.) Cables, like music strings, being caressed and contorted into different inputs and outputs.
Severence is a modular musician and his sounds are brimming with this tactile quality. The LP is firmly focused on the machines, their capabilities and the idea of change and chaos. The record was recorded in one take using a euro-rack modular synth and a handful of effects pedals. The entire a-side is created from something known as “Nonlinearcircuits Sloth.” I’d never heard of it before but the idea is sounds are created, concertinaed and stretched before being returned to their original state. The effect is like wind gusting across a field, grass and vegetation being bent, pulled, twisted. Yet Severance’s sound isn’t set on one plain, it shifts. Fizzing static, looming menace and otherworldy echoes shape the opening tracks. The “Epoch Modular Benjolin” is the focal point of the flip. Not sure what that is. Me Neither. But musically the second side is a much calmer affair. Those rustling winds are still present, but the intensity has subsided. Instead a deep, dense ambience takes hold. Emotions tumble out, banks of mist shrouding pain and joy. This is probably best summarized in the finale, the looming and wonderful “Benjolin Drone IV.”
This is a complex, challenging and ultimately rewarding vinyl debut by Severance. This isn’t warm and fuzzy ambient music. This is chilling material, haunting and lonesome. An album of introspection, of reflection and rich textures.
Mensch 003 is available on Mensch.
