Above all else, there appears to be a luminous veil in the underpinnings of These Four Walls, a personal struggle that the artist reveals via lost mechanical data streams floating in the air.
Shimmer Crush (aka Laurel Daugherty-Seto) opens up an account with Toronto’s The Crime League, run by Michael Morton (aka Displacer). Within These Four Walls, Shimmer Crush allows dark-matter to interact with the tiniest dust and drone particles. Emotive and translucent, solemn and surreal, tracks like “Betrayal” and “Denial” are prime examples of minute glitch tentacles swaying back and forth in an enigmatic haze. Odd blips and disjointed voices are muffled by tempered post-ambient/industrial layers. Similarly, “Paresthesia” evolves from the opening two tracks and introduces cropped vocal bits and turbulent percussive forces—perhaps the most fluid downtempo piece on the album.
Above all else, there appears to be a luminous veil in the underpinnings of These Four Walls, a personal struggle that the artist reveals via lost mechanical data streams floating in the air. “Dwelling (In A Shroud)” and “Erosion” rest in these environments of often fractured drone escapes. Modular activity comes to life on “The Depths of Experience,” a high-pitched buzzing electrical flurry that spouts creative noise from left to right. Closing on a higher note, “Embrace” delivers flickering melodic pulses alongside a roughed beat that holds it all together just below curious surface whispers.
These Four Walls played front to back and in random order, continue to baffle and bewilder these ears, its darker tone and blackened drones are a well-primed backdrop to Earth’s hidden mysteries buried deep within its high-temperature core.
These Four Walls is available on The Crime League.
