Aquadors — Cloudlands
The album begins with the track "A pillow of clouds", which finds Coniglio and Oophoi playing shivering electronic beats over a melancholic melody. The slow rhythm, almost too slow to be considered rhythm at all, is high pitched and almost ear-piercing. With this rhythm, "A pillow of clouds" grows more intense and turns from it’s minimal introduction, to a beautiful and expanding sonic landscape. On the second track "Daylight fading into evening silence" you can feel the slow and soft rhythm growing a little in proportions, compared to the previous track, and revealing itself as a slow heartbeat which pulses underneath the cold musical layers that Coniglio and Oophoi have created.
Deeper into the heart of the album, the listener finds that while this music is indeed very cold, it does not project any sense of alienation, darkness or any sort of hostility. Instead, Cloudlands deliver’s a sense of an emerging or birth; a frozen desert that is coming back to life. This can be heard by the sound of bells, ringing through the almost empty space on the track 'Zero Gravity'. Although minimal, this track manages to sound big, emotional and tempting.
"Night of trembling stars" ends this journey with a more extravagant way, as far more dramatic music form over obscure voices. The simple structure of this track works just fine and gives the album an impressive and memorable closure that seals “cloudlands” in its eternal winter, leaving us with a respectable album by two notable musicians.