MUSIC: Inter-Galactic Sonar Communication Probe Vol. 1 by V.A.
[A compilation album of 11 artists curated by Jyoti Naoki Eri]
Literary concepts are extraordinarily difficult to translate into visual art, let alone music. Expounding on a verbal concept with more words at least gives the writer some room to move, even if this space is arguably imaginary; but transplanting said space to a different medium suddenly makes one’s frame of reference extraordinarily small- how to narrate without speaking?
Science-fiction has helped to bridge the gap before (some of Phillip K. Dick’s or Burroughs’ alternate realities now tend to seem hocked together from everything humanity has tried to forget), and it continues to help push artistic boundaries in unexpected ways, as evidenced by Japanese Aurovilian artist and label-founder Jyoti Naoki Eri’s new compilation ‘Inter-Galactic Sonar Probe Vol. 1’. Featuring contributions from worldwide artists such as Psychopanda and Matt Black, the album is centred around the fictional concept of music being used as a form of sonic communication on a joyride to Andromeda eighty years in the future. Using a minimal range of textures, the result is something akin to music you can read, the unspoken words abstractly comforting… Something you might try and beam out to other life forms just for general reassurance.
“No worries, just passing through…”
This is consequently not the sort of music that can be easily written about analytically.
Track 2- 303 4 Peace // Mikkel Rev [NRW]
(Mikkel Rev is a DJ and producer from Norway and he is also one half of Omformer together with Oprofessionell.)
Scents of the familiar approaching in opening harmonies nodding off… Harmonies build by way of linear oscillators emphasizing one tone or another, an interminable chain of curtains to walk through freely. Sharper pebbles ‘neath the soles around midway lend impressions of giant turbines, fade in and out to the smooth grind of potter’s wheels. Within a limited melodic and harmonic framework, texture becomes self-referential- groups of different notes, each accented somewhere in the slow sweeping spectrum of middle and high frequencies, then become the basis for the next batch of tones, thus making each emphasized tone or sound itself the centerpoint of the music rather than the chord structure or other factors… Leaves of grass multiplying as fear stalks the land…
Like all the best ambience, an exercise in forgetfulness.
Submitted by Dhani Muniz
Listen to the track here: https://nadasana.bandcamp.com/track/303-4-peace-mikkel-rev-nrw
