Architeuthis Rex — Dark as the Sea
However I really feel this sort of sound is more a result of the widespread availability of effects pedals, synthesizers and amplifiers, which naturally produce these sorts of sounds when played without regard to traditional musical technique. Bands like this will occasionally add a very basic, simple pulse or repeating melodic fragment for the improvisation to occur around. There's often chanting and 'ecstatic' vocal performance. It's a crowded scene these days. This Architeuthis Rex album, "Dark as the Sea" falls fairly neatly into this category, with several unexpected additions to the instrumentation to make things more interesting, such as consistently entrancing hand percussion.
In some parts of the album, like when they use effects-laden, overdriven guitar loops, I suddenly feel like I'm back in a high school friend's garage, which is fine if you like your music that way. I find the moody, clean figures played here on the guitar are far less new to me than the band's less experimental side, and personally feel music like this is often most evocative when common instrumental sounds have become absent or unrecognizable, so I am grateful for these parts of the album during which the sound of guitar becomes liquid and shapeless, and all associations become otherworldly, the sound a midpaced wander through a subterranean surrealist dreamscape - the times when the band is 'channeling', opening a door to some mysterious force, rather than merely playing a derivative form.
This band certainly still plays with the unthinking, uncompromising adventurousness of young musicians, sometimes almost as if no audience is listening and they are playing for themselves alone, but this is couples with a natural ability to forcibly engulf the listener in a neon, chaotic world. The layering is truly synergistic and overwhelming, a wave of energy washing over you that justifies the existence of this genre - purely ambient music could never have the sheer force "Dark as the Sea" exerts on the listener. They structure the chaos of their genre just enough to keep the music moving and show you that the world they create is of intentional, if not precise, construction, an idea cemented by the occasional slow, murmuring siren call of a feedback melody. The recording has a dark, nightmarish saturation that reminds me of the shock of that moment after being jolted awake, in which I'm still in the transition period between sleep and waking, and have no idea where I am or what has been happening in my life. It is thus dark without being forced, as many ritual and dark ambient groups are these days, especially those who have crossed over from black metal and brought the 'grim' image with them. There are musical references to classic psychedelic rock and its occasional Indian sounding scales and drones, but in the end these are but faint sounds in the back of the mix, reminding us of where we have come from rather than where we are.
As hinted above, it's powerful percussion that ties this album together, and cements its distinctness. These odd, complex pulses, played on various forms of bells and hand percussion, reveal the hidden structure behind the offbeat interactions of the loops in such pieces as the middle eastern sounding "Cephalopedie" with a finesse and subtlety that recalls (but does not equal - few could) the rhythms of ambient master Robert Rich. These beats have absolutely nothing to do with 'rock' in any of its myriad forms. Though the attempted exotic flavor is less convincing than some, it is not cheesy. Occasionally the drums aggressively take center stage, such as in the shamanic accumulation of energy that begins the 22 minute epic "Another Kind of Blue". Rare it is that an album in this genre, oft-maligned for its complete lack of musicianship, features players with such confidence and groove.
Every once in a while, especially near the ends of the lengthy tracks, which average around 8 minutes or so, there are so many layers that it sounds like two songs intended to be separate are being played at the same time. Listening to the album on my computer, several times I became convinced that some other unwanted sound, like a song or video from my internet browser, was playing over the music, only to find that it was just a particularly chaotic part of the track I was listening to. When this occurs, the individual textures of the sounds are lost and the band loses a lot of its focus. This is most obvious with the unnecessary entrance of heavy drums around the 9 minute mark of "Another Kind of Blue" which by that point has already become a thick, hot wall of white feedback that renders the mid-tempo percussive sounds an awkward afterthought. It actually hinders the momentum that builds in the second 10 minutes, which can only be described as blissful zen in feedback form and sees the band really using an extended running time to get farther into a musical place and a state of mind. Thankfully the drums do drop out again, and the final few minutes of the song, augmented by the (possibly artificially recreated) sounds of the surf, shimmer with the peaceful intensity of a sunset and the track retains the highlight status it gained with its marvelous intro.
Other than the epic, the most straightforward, soupy noise-ambient jams might be the most successful. "Dark as the Sea" and "We Dream the Seashore" are wonderful songs that never wear out their welcome. "Bbroke" includes something you could almost call a riff and brings us back to the cinematic emotionality of post rock for a few minutes, something I enjoy very much.
The album has no real weak points but I would guess that some would find the overall free form style grating and useless, or take issue with the harsh, crowded, low budget recording. If you're into the modern style of psychedelic free form jamming described in this review, I would recommend "Dark As the Sea" as solid, without hesitation, as its been consistently enjoyable and listenable for me, though I think it's ultimately unessential. If you usually find music like this too disorganized, the detailed rhythmic pulses here might do a little to entice you but likely do not provide enough structure to convert anyone to this style of music, as this still comes across as a chaotic, spur of the moment sort of disk.