 |
|
Talvihorros, "Descent Into Delta"
Talvihorros is Ben Chatwin, a London-based guitarist that has been quietly releasing some fairly good albums in the abstract soundscape/drone vein over the last few years.  Then he released a truly great one (this one) and it went woefully under-appreciated and overlooked.  If the world were a fair place, Descent Into Delta would have been all over "Best of 2011" lists.
Descent derives its title from the brain waves associated with deep sleep, which is a curious but apt theme for this album to have.  It's "curious" because all of these pieces originated as solo guitar improvisations, which are not commonly associated with ambitious conceptual underpinnings.  However, Chatwin spend an enormous amount of time honing that raw material into something larger and deeper and it shows: the completed album feels like a coherent, composed song suite that follows a clear narrative arc from gamma (anxiety) all the way to delta (slumber).  This is actually the first time that Chatwin has assembled an album in this fashion, as his previous studio efforts have had little in common with his live improvisations.
The "apt" part is that this is very heady, dreamlike music.  It shares a lot of common ground with Erik Carlson's recent work as Area C, but the dream state evoked by Chatwin is a considerably darker and more frightening place.  It is also a much denser one, as Ben's original motifs have been painstakingly augmented and layered into something heavier and more haunting than anyone could create with just a guitar and a looping pedal.  This is apparent almost instantly, as the initial shimmer of "Gamma" rapidly escalates into a gnarled howl.
That eventually subsides, however, and "Gamma" segues into the languid and melancholy "Beta."  There's still some bite to it though, as Chatwin buffets his fragile arpeggios with thick, buzzing low-end surges, static intrusions, and distorted guitar squall.  The maelstrom ebbs into an oasis of relative calm near the end, but Ben ingeniously maintains a lingering feeling of tension and dread by sprinkling the comparatively clean and solemn come-down with wrong-sounding notes.  "Beta" is the perfect microcosm for everything that Chatwin does beautifully on Descent Into Delta, as he is able to keep a number of different plates spinning without ever losing the perfect balance: all of the various components vibrantly weave together organically and dynamically.  Also, Ben's clean guitar lines cut through the surrounding chaos and distortion very effectively.  It's like listening to a recording of an earthquake, but still hearing falling icicles with perfect clarity.
"Alpha" is essentially a continuation of "Beta," but it now feels muted and distant.  Again, this is quite deliberate, as alpha waves are synonymous with a state of relaxation.  Most of the dissonance fades away, but Chatwin doesn't allow the piece to become too placid–it just slows way down into glacial throbs mingled with clean, but somewhat blurry and indistinctly twinkling guitars.  It isn't especially relaxing at first either, as the reverie is periodically disrupted by bursts of stuttering or strangled electric guitar.
"Theta" is the dream state and it sounds impressively like a fractured and surreal warping of everything that came before it: a broken, slow-motion version of the arpeggio theme from "Alpha" fades in accompanied by reverberating piano plinks, but both are consumed by washes of heavily processed guitar strumming.  It's quite beautiful and woozy, cohering into slow pulse of sorts (like breathing, actually), but never quite enough to seem predictable.  That is an attention to detail that elevates this album into something pretty amazing–when Chatwin hits upon a great idea (which he does often), he never allows it to repeat in a straightforward way.  Instead, motifs pulse and undulate like they're alive and other sounds artfully appear to twist in and around them.
For the final piece ("Delta," of course), Chatwin is joined by violist Anais Lalange.  It's largely held together by a low drone, but Ben stays very busy unraveling a heavily-chorused slow-motion arpeggio progression.  There's also something that sounds like a buried and mangled accordion in there, but it gradually all fades away to leave only gently rippling harmonics and the muted sadness of Anais's viola.  While it is not as overtly striking as some of the earlier sections of the album, Descent into Delta's sparse denouement might be my favorite part, as the long spaces between notes finally allow me to hear the mesmerizing vapor trails of decay left in their wake.  I don't know quite what Ben did to achieve that effect, but it is quite spectral and beautiful.
I hate the word "masterpiece" and it has obviously been overused to the point of near-meaninglessness, but I think this might be one anyway.  At the very least, I can't imagine anything that Chatwin could've done to make this album better.  In the most obvious sense, this is simply great music and it is complex and multilayered enough to stay compelling after many listens.  On a deeper level though, Descent Into Delta is an absolutely fascinating album to deconstruct and get lost in: it follows a very unusual trajectory (constantly slowing and weakening) and stretches a few recurring motifs into 40-minutes of vibrant, constantly-shifting near-perfection.  Almost every single theme is fluid and unpredictable enough to reward close scrutiny.  It is truly a rare thing for music this coherent, composed, and melodic to hold so much mystery.
Samples:
 
