Adam Biel and Cory Strand — Shadow Reworks
There are two alternate cover arts for this release, one features the lead vocalist of the Chromatics, Ruth Radelet, while the other features Laura Palmer's cracked picture frame beside a rose and Chromatics records (the copy I am using to make this review came with the latter). The release comes on a limited run of 24 hand-numbered C43 cassettes in a lime green shell. The split came about when the pair noticed a shared affinity not only for Twin Peaks but specifically for David Lynch's sound work on the series - something I am right there with them on - this took place while Cory was working on a prior solo release Adam put out on the label.
The first side starts us off with Adam's "Still Thinking That I Hear Your Voice". We begin with a wash of reverb, an iced glass surface gets colder and colder, and in turn more opaque. Mist seeps in from a window like it were smoke trying to escape it in reverse. Slowly, we submerge into a thick, dense cloudy soup of blissful ambient droning - slowly, muted thuds and scrapes clip us by the ears. All of a sudden the thuds, that at first sounded like rewound VHS tape sampling, come to a tumultuous crescendo - cutting out at the climax and entering into a bubbly, rippling smog of ambient noise wall that whirs gloopily. The mood really swings about here, while at first, it was dreamy and haze-like, which gave the listener a 'lofty' sensation - the gloop of it all here approaching the five-minute mark starts to mire the listener and pull them back down as though the arms of the dead clawed at them from the river Styx itself. There is something about the pace of this gloopy whirring that sounds like a really spot-on imitation of a deep-sea dive sound recording - I begin to imagine David Attenborough giving me some facts about deep-sea life in his husky voice. The sound is really quite removed from what you might normally imagine if you were described the premise of the release and the notion that this piece is a 'rework' of the Chromatics song in question. With that said, as far removed as it seems throughout, this removal is not necessarily a bad thing - as the further it gets, the closer it begins to sit with the Lynchian sound design that spurred the whole thing on to begin with. In fact, more than anything, this track had me wishing Lynch had decided to set at least some part of the Twin Peaks series underwater at some point - although I will admit the otherworldly sound design he used for places like the White Lodge most likely comes very close to what he would have used in that scenario. As we get fully underway, past the eleven-minute mark, the gloop has continued to simmer and bubble and really begins to take on a sleepy, relaxing quality. Approaching the sixteen-minute mark a large creaking wakes us out of this sleepy slumber. The creaking bellows into echoing, ghostly whispers that shiver directly down your spine and once again flip the mood in an instant. As the wisps of sound swirl around it becomes increasingly hard to discern the rumble beneath that it had been burying, until it feels as though the ambient whir must have given out completely to it - instead, now, we have this great chamber of a thousand mouths delivering an incantation in a long-dead tongue. They hiss and veer at the listener with foreboding until halting abruptly.
On the opposite side, we have Cory's "Dreams In The Rain". We begin with a luscious hazy synth drone with a circling crispy distortion that flits around the ether of sound as though it were some kind of an overdriven echo with a mind of its own - in a playful dialogue. Indeed, there certainly feels as though there were conscious decision-making behind the way the two interact - of course, it's also just as likely a happy accident of automated processes landing on ideal settings, or some other such explanation, but the ear can't help but attach a creative imagination to these sounds upon listening and I like to think Cory does indeed spend a lot of time and dedication making not only blanket decisions about his rework pieces but also making fine, delicate adjustments in real-time. Listening and soaking in the slow, methodic shimmer of drone - I can't help but recall a favourite drone composer of mine in recent years, Aidan Baker. Baker might be most notably half of the duo Nadja, but he also composes some amazing drone music under his own name. To me, it feels as though, especially here in this rework, Cory shows very Baker-esque tendencies in how he executes a particular, slowly-evolving mood within his drone that involves a simple yet evocative coupling of patterns that slowly mould together in interesting new ways over a somewhat lengthy span. Coming past the ten-minute mark I took note that the thick glaze of sound had successfully immersed me into a very dream-like state. If there were one criticism I would maintain from Adam's side it were that his attempts at 'organic change' sometimes came off a little more abrupt than as perhaps intended, and this was only exacerbated by the abrupt-halt closing of the piece. Cory shows no signs of twists or turns that mark a dramatic change - and indeed no dramatic change takes places - but I somehow feel much more altered engaging with this luscious drone's cyclical hypnotism than I did following the splashes and painted doorways of the previous side that attempted to give the drone a sense of 'journeying'. Approaching the eighteen-minute mark the drone soup does eventually slow fade out and give way to a perfectly sad and sonorous melody - a real, lamenting emotion fills the sound and its echoes ripple through the empty space of silence all around it. It begins to take on a very 'string-like' quality, as though we're hearing a crying violin covered in murk and pitched down, it weeps out in a large and empty cave before flatlining in one last uncharacteristically electronic buzzing whir.
Cory's own description of their sound describes the album as an attempt to "build Lynchian/Badalamentian towers of oppressive and melancholic drone" - a mission statement that serves the album well and feels ultimately accomplished. There is a real element to both tracks that communicates not only a love for the new season of Twin Peaks but for the wider scope of Lynch's work in sound design and his relationship with music and the experimental use of sound. I couldn't recommend this split enough to anyone interested in Cory's solo drone work and the Altar of Waste label at large and I am glad in making the new discovery of his partner on this split, Adam Biel, even if I did personally find the preference in Cory's contribution. As of writing this release is listed as Sold Out on the label storenvy site, so, unfortunately, it's left to places like Discogs for anyone hoping to snag a copy…..though you can download from Strand’s bandcamp page here