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The Stargazer's Assistant, "Shivers and Voids"
From the band's name, I was expecting something more along the lines of pretentious 1970s prog rock, but this most definitely is not the case. While a rather short album, the three expansive tracks that comprise it encompass a vast variety of sounds and styles that create an ethnographic, soundtrack experience unlike many others.
The disc opens and closes with two longer pieces and a shorter, more conventional track sandwiched in the middle. The opening of “Night Soil” begins with all metallic swelling reverbs and pronounced field recordings including birds loudly chirping. Eventually the abnormal nature sounds are supplanted with improvised percussion and subtle, restrained strings that eventually builds to a level of pure explosive noise before retreating back into a quiet realm of harmonium and organ before again growing dark with bass heavy loops to end the track.
The short title track is the most musically conventional on here: a rhythm section made up of heavily reverberated clattering, plaintive acoustic guitar, and gentle vocals that, while heavily multitracked and echoed, never lose their human quality. Layers of effects and production serve to add complexity, but never obscures the core musicality of the song.
Finally, the closing “The Dream Kingdom” is especially cinematic, opening with a subwoofer rattling low end and gong before segueing into tense, rumbling strings and bits of metallic percussion. The more conventional movie soundtrack sound is later mixed with noisy electronic textures and eventually martial snare drumming that builds in darkness and intensity until pulling away, leaving only harmonium and the final reverberations of strings to close the album.
Although an all too brief release, Shivers and Voids is a remarkable piece of cinema for the ears that, though atmospherically it makes sense, probably would not make for a good soundtrack because there is simply too much going on. Instead, it is probably best relegated to the auditory realm so it can be the focus of attention. It would have been nice for there to have been a bit more material on here, however, as it clocks in as more of an EP than a full album, but the good far outweighs this shortcoming.
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