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Aranos, "Mother of Moons Bathing"
Before I even got around to playing this album I was intrigued by the album's packaging. The red fuzzy sleeve contains both the CD (obviously) and sleeve notes printed on a thin, Styrofoam-like material. The different textures of the materials are at first baffling but then a certain kind of logic begins to emerge while listening to the album. The music itself changes texture persistently, from soft to rough, from hard to gooey; by the time I adjust to a piece I am lost again. It is a wonderful feeling, like being a little drunk in a foreign town.
Aranos is no stranger to variety, his music constantly changing shape from moment to moment and the pieces here do not break from this mold. The bizarre and repetitive barbershop of "New Boyfriend" is sandwiched between completely different styles. Preceded by "Awaking Horns," a very minimalist style composition that sounds almost like the run-off of a vinyl groove, and followed by the amusicality of "Some Clowns are Not Funny," "New Boyfriend” sounds like an island of melody in a sea of atonality. However, the island is nice enough to explore but the real fun is taking a dip in that sea, getting lost in the different sounds that make up "Some Clowns Are Not Funny." The creaking noises and the sound of hailstones on a hard surface are like the most exquisite coral and brightly coloured fish.
The first seven tracks fly from the stereo like scattering bullets, ranging in size from just over a minute to just under ten. Then Aranos throws another curveball. Not content with jumping styles, he includes too very long tracks at the end of the album. After the bite size chunks from earlier in the album, these two pieces are daunting to say the least. "Towards Glittering Warm Dumplings" is the sound of strange percussive scrapings, what sounds like guitar strings and some other heavily processed scrapes. Slowly Aranos adds other layers of rhythms and slight melody to the piece, the overall effect is like some of Faust's tape collages; something both familiar sounding but also completely warped. Mother of Moons Bathing finishes with the sublime "Invisibility Cloak of Time," featuring all soft drones and haunting ambiences. After the varied and sometimes frenetic music that has come before, "Invisibility Cloak..." is an unexpectedly calm end to a fascinating album.
The best way I can describe Mother of Moons Bathing is that it is an adventure. Dropped into it without much of a map (just a stanza of poetry in the sleeve notes), it is wonderful to just wander through it, not knowing what is coming next. As I am getting more used to the album's twists and turns, it allows me more time to pay attention to the immediate surroundings of the music. The textures are not just limited to the materials making up the sleeve; it is almost possible to run a finger along the sounds themselves.
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