Adrian Aniol — It All Falls Apart
As side A begins, synth pads and wind fade in immediately and intermingle into a dim, misty cloak. The rest of the first 7 minutes are then wasted on slight modulations of synthy white noise, which sits plainly on the surface of the ambience and fails to deepen the sound, or effectively blend with it.
The piece slowly winds its way through several sonic 'areas'. New themes emerge fluidly from the gloom every 4 or 5 minutes, always atop the basic bed of misty murk, which at times becomes quite distracting and drags the piece into sameness. Aniol first starts to successfully build some momentum with mournful horn-like notes, each of which bends sadly down as it cascades into the distance, reverberating powerfully over the opaque mass so as to illuminate the distant reaches hitherto hidden from us.
From there, the second half of the track fares better and achieves more of a feel of import and gravitas, starting with the timeless sound of a large bell periodically tolling. This brings a focus to the track that it has been sorely lacking, though the bell sounds displaced from the sounds around it. The bass becomes deeper and more ominous, and one starts to feel there is a point to it all.
Aniol puts some real emotional weight in the music with the sudden entrance of a mysterious, X-Files-esque piano which sings mournfully yet whimsically to the rhythm of the wind, but at 18 minutes it comes too late, and also disappears as quickly as it comes, replaced once again but the same murky dimness. The track ends with a briefly 'noise-out': the white noise increases in urgency, and right when its about to start amassing some real sonic energy, abruptly cuts out.
All in all, side A is a decently moody nocturnal trip for the mind, if a bit unoriginal and uneventful. Unfortunately, its remix on side B is far weaker, reinterpreting the least interesting elements of the track and omitting all the most distinctive sections. The underlying fog that permeates the wandering narrative of the first track is all that is here, and not nearly altered enough to justify another 18 minutes of the same. It's been pitch changed slightly, the rhythm of its pulsation altered or reversed, but it's the same windy gusts and lulls, if anything less immersive in this form than in its first incarnation.
Many of my favorite ambient releases expertly sketch evocative acoustic spaces with only the slightest hints of reverberation. "It All Falls Apart" is quite contrasted to that; I can't 'see' much of anything through most of this sound, there's only an opaque mire. This can be done intentionally to great effect, such as in the case of Steve Roach's "Sleep Chamber", which oppresses the listener with submerged isolation, but here it seems more like a result of unimaginative mixing and sound placement, and it makes the piece somewhat forgettable and insubstantial. It's too vague for its own good.
So sadly this isn't one of the better Utech releases, and I can't recommend it when there's so much more distinctive nocturnal and ritual ambience being created. If you listen to dark ambient, you've heard all of these elements before, and combined in more effective, intuitive ways. The first track is certainly a good slice of ambience, but the second track is rather irrelevant. "It All Falls Apart" is not badly made per se, but there's nothing about it I'll remember too fondly either.