There are drones and there are drones. And then there's the first track on Machinist's fourth album, 'Of What Once Was'. The album contains just two tracks and clocks in at just over 50 minutes. The first of the tracks, 'Mono Tone in D' sounds pretty much exactly as the title suggests. Inspired by French artist Yves Klein's concept of the 'Monotone Symphony', the track uses electric guitar to sculpt a movement in D, the only variations being the length of the tones and the 'shapes of resonance' as he calls them. There are textures and tones, fine details and nuances, but essentially the twenty-one minute piece is a single, undulating succession of same-note drones.
The title track - a recording of a live improvisation - contains more notes, but exists within the same sonic sphere, with epic, slow and undulating drones stretching out for an eternity – well, thirty minutes and fifty five seconds to be precise, but it feels like forever. Yet this isn't entirely a bad thing: if you switch off and allow the (sine) waves to carry you to another place entirely, it's possible to feel the vibrations infiltrating your system, the incidentals and atmospherics adding layer upon layer of tension and sounds that create fleeting images in the mind's eye...
|
With 'Of What Once Was', Machinist have delivered an album that has the capacity to feed – and unsettle – the imagination, while again proving the truth behind the adage that less is more.
Machinist / Moving Furniture Records Online
|
