Barn Owl — V
Other reviewers have drawn parallels between this album and the drones of Earth and Sunn O))) as reference points for the uninitiated but for me, ‘V’ hearkens back to the past; a past of the darker drones of early krautrock. As we progress through the disc familiar sounds appear and memories are jogged, though this is no retro imitation.
The album begins with ‘Void Redux’, six minutes of brooding synthesizer washes and plucked guitars in a deep restless ambient sound chasm. The track evokes the mood of desert spaces and cold clear night skies with storms on the horizon, brittle and threatening.
‘The Long Shadow’ follows and here burbling analogue noise is joined by spacey ethereal synths and more plucked guitar. The guitar rings out with plaintive notes, a sad meeting with the cathedral ambience of the electronics and some church like organ as the whole thing comes to a climax of dissonant noise analogue synths.
‘Against The Night’ follows in similar fashion with analogue electronics fighting against blissful synths and plaintive guitar. The music ebbs and flows like an electric storm, waves of sound approaching then receding like an electronic tide.
Minimal beats and percussion appear on ‘Blood Echo’ and also on the albums longest track ‘The Opulent Decline’ which closes the whole affair. On ‘Blood Echo’ towering synths appear in the style of Klaus Schulze’s monumental ‘Cyborg’, the rhythm lumbering and deeply forceful as the atmosphere intensifies.
‘Pacific Isolation’ follows with lonesome guitar and crackling noise joined by high key synth washes and deep synth chords which congeal and coalesce into a seething noisescape combining Tangerine Dream with the brooding power of early Ash Ra Tempel.
We then come to the aforementioned seventeen minute closer, ‘Opulent Decline’, the highlight of the album. Originally over thirty minutes long, this piece begins again with high key synths which are soon joined by a slow eerie drum machine rhythm and the sounds of alien landscapes. Here the similarity to classic period Tangerine Dream becomes more explicit along with further echoes of Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel. After a while it all calms down and we enter an underground cavern of glacial beats which drip from the walls as the synthesizers become desolate and sombre. Fuzz guitars appear from the mist and float around like ghosts of music past, and then swirl into vortices of noise which gradually fades away.
‘V’ will be appreciated by all lovers of droning, brooding dark soundscapes and those familiar with classic ambient krautrock. All the right moves are here in an immensely impressive 42 minutes.