Brenner & Molenaar — Uninvited Savior
The artwork for the album gives us hints of the psychedelic sonics with-in the album, though in a certain light it has a New Age look to it- it shows us a mirrored digital collage of an ancient catacomb with a ghostly shape in the middle of it.
Musically, Uninvited Savior offers us a mixture of soundscapes reaching from psychedelic experimental music, 70's cult field recordings, drones, and power electronics. However, from time to time the listener, unfortunately, get the impression that the two artists are trying to fully tie down a definitive style for their work. But more on that at later...
The first track, "Burial Delirium" begins with an organ and panpipe-like sound, which gets slowly added to by emerging drones and xylophone. The music slides in a more psychedelic direction and continues to build up to ascend into unknown spheres. After two minutes, more experimental and sometimes even harsher sounds temporarily take control over the track, but channel themselves back into the background to let the obviously oriental-influenced, mantra-like sound taking the lead again. After five minutes, a superimposed and improvised steel guitar sets in and gives "Burial Delirium" a very avant-garde new age feeling. Gradually, a large amount of distorted free jazz sounds are added and accompanied by synths. The sonic structure drifts again, and is underpinned by power electronics elements only to let the steel guitar take control again.
The second piece, "Transfixed", begins with a dark tape loop and some hard, bass-ridden, rhythmic drones. Quietly, some sacred-sounding spherical elements set in to accompany the uncomfortable feeling for a while. After nearly six minutes, you can perceive some very quiet field recordings, which fit very well into the structure of the track. The oppressive mood is continued consistently and very powerfully through the bass sounds. Elements of jazz can be heard briefly here, too, but are rather lost in the soundscape. In "Transfixed" you can also find borrowings of classic power electronics textures. However, the piece lives clearly from the field recordings together with the bass structures which add a very powerful sound to the music.
The third and final piece "Hallelujah (7 Years)” is a radio play-like piece with classic power electronics elements, spoken word parts, amplified/distorted vocals, manipulated field recordings and harsh sounds of all kinds. This piece is very interesting, but in my opinion sometimes inconsistent in terms of the vocal work, but that's a matter of taste. The distorted voices, the subliminal vocals, and the spoken parts create a very ritual atmosphere and the production sounds very dark.
So in summing up- I largely enjoyed what we have here- the first track wasn’t great, but "Transfixed" and "Hallelujah (7 Years)" were most worthy. I felt if things had been trimmed down to the hour mark length the whole release would have worked better. And the artwork for the album emphasizes the theme of the first track, and doesn't refer to the other tracks and their mood...