Angelo Harmsworth — Without Blinking

Broken into three tracks, two very long cuts and a shorter vocal piece sandwiched between them, Harmsworth picks up where others in the ambient genre appear to be moving: away from linear progression and temporal development and toward something more auto-generative (read: possessed). By this, I mean a kind of musical form that festers and rots like a virus or mold, placing listeners inside of a malignant growth rather than offering them a clear view of the landscape and a defining horizon. The instrumentation is mostly electronic, though tape speed shifts appear to have been employed, as the fact of things slowing down feels intentional and rehearsed, even if it manages to frighten, a bit. 

The album's first cut, "Trauma Arbitrage", sounds like the engine room of a steamboat on barbiturates, clanging and moving in circular fashion, almost indifferent to the ears of its listeners. There is a distinct flanging quality to Harmsworth's textures, though the effect is ultimately too labored to be fully transparent. The specter of voices hangs in the background, interjecting occasionally, but never present enough in the mix to necessitate immediate attention. Instead, the drown ghost of a human utterance beseeches us to look away, avert our eyes, hence the album's titular appeal to refrain from using our eyes. "Splinter", the second composition, was made in collaboration with Felisha Ledesma, whose voice rises above ominous organ drones, in layers made of part spoken word and part echoey chorus reminiscent of Liz Harris. The final track, "Yellow Haze Skin", puts us back in the belly of this metallic beast, which at first follows the logic of "Trauma Arbitrage", but then gradually disperses into more open spaces. Clearly, Harmsworth, like those left-coast Canadians, Tim Hecker and Scott Morgan before him, rejects the teleological impulse of ambient work, preferring instead to stay in the claustrophobic room he has designed for his listeners.

 

Without Blinking should appeal to fans of darker, atmospheric ambient work that emphasizes the metallic, inorganic nature of its electronic sound sources. Others may well appreciate Harmsworth's precision and the circularity he achieves in his compositions, which leave us without a reliable point way out. Highly recommended