We find ourselves immersed in full-bodied expanses of floating drones and the intricate use of field recordings, for a slow and pleasant listening, exposed to very skillful sound design techniques.
Nocturnal landscapes which stretch from the sea to the highest mountain peaks
Shedir (aka Martina Betti) arrives at her third album, the first with n5MD after two published with Cyclic Law. The good things we noticed and appreciated in her previous albums are promptly confirmed by this very recent Before the Last Light is Blown, which clearly and unequivocally shows Betti’s stylistic contribution.
The new album immerses in a grabbing sonic exploration of Betti’s island home of Sardinia, becoming a guide through the nocturnal landscapes which stretch from the sea to the highest mountain peaks. The wind blowing within “This Fever” erodes and shapes the space until it reaches a rugged landscape created with a Moog modular system and later made nebulous through some Pure Data patches. “Spikes,” another song, is a nocturnal undertow between sea and land.
As claimed by the artist: “Every composition starts with listening: an intimate/inner listening that must confront a foreign/external type of listening. My works include short environmental recordings to suggest a physical space, a tactile perception, or specific framings for the listeners. However, I’m not interested in naturalistic aspects: the material obtained from field recordings allows me to create a track of familiarity and then move into an alien and strange dimension, surreal virtual spaces. That’s where I feel most comfortable.”
An airy soundscape crossed by restless currents, defined by the intertwining of dazzling lights and deep shadows is the territory of choice for Martina Betti, resonant material through which to draw trajectories suspended between the more contemplative Enoian drifts and the dark crescendo tensions of Rafael Anton Irisarri. With Before The Last Light Is Blown, the Shedir project reaches its third chapter, marking a clear line of continuity, without marked changes in direction with what has been produced so far. We find ourselves immersed in full-bodied expanses of floating drones and the intricate use of field recordings, for a slow and pleasant listening, exposed to very skillful sound design techniques.
Before the Last Light is Blown is available on n5MD. [Bandcamp | Site]
