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Twilight of the Century, "Hibernation"
As one of the preeminent psychedelic rock/electro acoustic super groups in the Upstate New York/Massachusetts area, Twilight of the Century have not been overly prolific amongst their many related projects, with this tape representing their first actual release since their founding in 2008. The rock half, Eric Hardiman and Ray Hare, make up Century Plants and have a slew of solo guises, while the more avant garde experimentalism is the work of Mike Bullock and Linda Aubry Bullock, who largely work under their own names and as Rise, Set, Twilight. Hibernation captures the quartet carefully balancing those more aggressive, guitar focused tendencies with the subtle use of electronics wonderfully.
The four pieces that make up this tape were recorded in a single session, yet each have their own distinctive feel.The first half of the cassette is skewed towards the lighter sounds more, with "Hibernation 1" heavily built upon modular synth twinkles and a low, wavering electronic drone that sounds just slightly, intentionally out of tune in order to sound just a bit uncomfortable.Vocals from both Linda Aubry Bullock and Ray Hare lay low in the mix, and even when the bass guitar booms a bit, it remains hushed and just as quickly drifts away into a universe of space echo and engine-like electronics.
The following piece emphasizes the electronics more, but with a looser and less structured feel, bringing in a fair bit of chaos.It is a bit messier comparatively, but never does it come across as unstructured or unfocused noodling.On the flip side, "Hibernation 3" is where Hardiman and Hare flex their muscles a bit more and move to the forefront.Right up front there is distorted guitar and foundation rattling bass, but tastefully echoed and reinforced by a subtle bed of electronics.The bass leads crank up the psychedelic aspect of the sound, while the guitar provides a nice noisy squall as a backing.
The final piece does not seem to sit too definitively in either the electronic or the rock ends of the spectrum, but its wet, splattering electronics and disjointed rhythmic pulses lead to it developing its own idiosyncratic identity.It has a harsher, aggressive quality to it that vacillates between soft and rough, at times tightly honed and well organized, other times a bit disheveled.The concluding half is more structured, however, and even has a somewhat pretty finish to an otherwise spiny and jagged composition.
It is a bit frustrating to know that Twilight of the Century has been so non-prolific in the past five years, because Hibernation is a tantalizing bit of improvised psychedelic electronics that simply made me want to hear more.However, their extremely sparse discography makes that pretty much impossible, so I will just have to wait patiently for the next release.All four artists here are amazing in their own right, but Twilight of the Century has them playing off of one another that ends up being greater than the sum of its parts.
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