Feel yourself enter into a disfiguring, distorted trance-like state that you almost want to wake up from, but not quite. Abstract patterns are fed into your brain, and you think on them until they make perfect sense. Everything in your mind suddenly melts together into a murky liquid that sloshes around aimlessly. You're not awake, and you're not asleep; your state of consciousness lies somewhere in between. You become hypnotized and mesmerized, and eventually you won't want to wake up at all. You'll find yourself come to eventually though, as you always do, and you'll have no idea how much time has passed since you entered the dream-like state. I believe that music that causes you to lose yourself, but still allows you to remember the music clearly is one of the most powerful things that can be done artistically. This isn't something done by brand new artists looking to improvise a noise album in one try, it takes technique and a consciousness of what the artist is doing.
You can hear the artist's influences creeping into the new Ancestral Voices album, and thus it's found its own place in a sea of Ambient albums that surface daily in massive numbers. This one stands out because of its frequent guidance from Techno roots and production techniques. This isn't a Techno record by any means, but you can hear Liam Blackburn's history of experimentation in the genre without doing any research on him. The opening song creates a monstrous atmosphere, and it's complimented by the sequenced synthesizers overtop of it, which serve as a means to enhance the existing backing track. I've always felt that Techno has a real power to strengthen almost any style of music, and particularly Ambient styles because repetitive synth patterns inspired by Progressive Electronic artists from the 70s can invoke something more tranquil than if those layers were to be removed.
Ninety-four minutes hardly seems like enough time for this album, because of how well it's performed. The songs average between nine and ten minutes each, and none of them overstay their welcome. Blackburn ensures that the droning atmosphere is only there long enough to grasp and keep the listener's attention, and it dissipates before it reaches the point of becoming tiresome. Tracks like "Shukr" have a more airy quality than the darker drone songs, but nothing feels out of place, they just serve to add to the narrative of finding one's own consciousness. Regardless of whatever themes are contributed by the artist (which are explained further on the album's page), the listener will find something to take away from this album, whether it's regarding the subject matter or musical elements.
The key words necessary for this album are influence and implementation. Ancestral Voices is an inspired project, and essentially, that's all most listeners really want in an Ambient release (at least in ones where the artist knows what they're doing). It's not a cash grab, and it's not a mere pretentious statement with endless drone loops slapped on top. Navagraha is a statement, but it has musical substance to back it up, and I think that once you have those two elements, you've found something triumphant. I'll certainly find myself revisiting this, and I can't say that about most Ambient albums that I find on Bandcamp.
The key words necessary for this album are influence and implementation. Ancestral Voices is an inspired project, and essentially, that's all most listeners really want in an Ambient release (at least in ones where the artist knows what they're doing). It's not a cash grab, and it's not a mere pretentious statement with endless drone loops slapped on top. Navagraha is a statement, but it has musical substance to back it up, and I think that once you have those two elements, you've found something triumphant. I'll certainly find myself revisiting this, and I can't say that about most Ambient albums that I find on Bandcamp.
Navagraha is an album that can be talked about and discussed endlessly, but ultimately needs to be experienced. It's an inspired effort, and one that really wants the listener to feel some kind of euphoria. In that sense, it's not something you want to look past or avoid. It's a record that would aid in meditation, mindfulness and self discovery, if that's your thing; or it could be a nice album to put on before you go to sleep. More than likely, you're not going to merely keep it on in the background; it has a profound presence that calls upon you to listen, rather than to just hear it. Ancestral Voices put forth an exertion of precision in an often aimless genre, and this serves to be something to be recognized and remembered.
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