Cory Strand — Oblivion Adorned
The two tracks here are themed around US Pop star, Actress & Model Lindsay Lohan, and the Altar Of Waste house style clear dvd case packaging takes in pictures of Ms Lohan on the beach- both staring out to sea, and smiling & posing.
The first track comes in the form of the title track, and this 36.27 minute piece is built around stark, bleak, and fixed drone patterns. It’s constructed around two or three layers of blurred, muffled & grey ambient textures- these have quite a stark industrial churning quality about them, and Strand feeds these out in a very quiet yet total hopeless & unbreakable sonic stream. The tracks mangers to create a very grim & oppressive feel, and I’d say it’s close in feeling to the stripped & stark drone/ambient matter Strand did under his Lethe project name.
Track two comes in the form of "Oblivioness of The Heart", and this comes in at the 33.30 mark. This track starts off being built around a fairly focused hovering drone, as it moves towards it’s fourth minute Strand starts adds in subtle harmonic sub-tone washers- these pull you in deeper & deeper to the tracks dark yet kind of pleasing hovering vibe. At the 10th minute the hovering element fades back, and is replaced by a shrimmering yet hazed mass of golden/hopefull guitar drone matter- as this progresses Strand nicely loops the textures out & out into a appealing drone scape, which does rather bring to mind the cover picture of Ms Lohan looking out to sea. The next shift happens around the twenty first minute mark where Strand add’s in a locked down live drum rhythm to shimmering drone wash, and this creates a nice bit of dramatic-ness. The rest of the tracks running time sees these two elements play-out together in quite a effective way, and at times there is an almost washed & spread out Pink Floyd like vibe to the guitar ambience.
So all in all this release offers up two fairly different slices of lengthy guitar based drone matter- both tracks are rewarding in their own rights, but they also work well together with the first track creating an effective feeling of a taut grey-ness, and the second moving from dark waters onto more expansive & golden ambience.