Strom Noir’s ambient is amongst the most subtle on record, distant and place-less but richly varied and embrasive.
Emil Mat’ko has been releasing music at a steady, even pace since 2007, yielding more than a dozen long- and extended-players to date, each as skillfully nuanced and uplifting as the next. In betrayal of his dark monicker, Strom Noir twists rainbows into braids, making the seemingly insubstantial emotionally salient. His ambient is amongst the most subtle on record, distant and place-less but richly varied and embrasive. It is the last blue in the sky just above the evening horizon, the perfectly featureless pane of glass turning into a rippling pool of spring water.
Strom Noir captures the vulnerability of the lone being up against the robustness of life, even as he expresses it with a hush. Standing Out Against the Sea consists of eight lengthy, ambiguously guitar-based pieces, treated, unaggressive watercolours. The nearly-imperceptible lilt upwards, toward the sun, discreetly standing out against the slightly atonal foreground of the title track, turns the listener into vapour. “Digital Saturn” is symphonic in the way that a school of whales is symphonic, giving way to the haunted “Haanah,” dusted with Orient. On the brief finale, “Kalimagdora,” the acoustic guitar finally reveals itself undressed, plaintive and then overcome.
Standing Out Against the Sea is available on DataObscura. [Release page]
