Daphne X — The Frost of Time

The question of time is one that continues to animate the work of the enigmatic Daphne X. The current release, The Frost Of Time, follows other time-themed albums, like last year’s, Transactions in Time (czaszka). Time can be lots of things, of course – a formal element of all recorded music, a structural principle, an unavoidable horizon toward which everything moves – but what exactly it’s doing here, front and centre, is something of a mystery. Though maybe it should remain mysterious? 

Listening to the mostly long-form compositions that make up The Frost Of Time (there are seven in total), it is clear that Daphne X is using several iterations of musical temporality on top of one another, layering their micro and macro effects into a system of counterpoints, with occasional harmonies. Some of these layers move quickly, while others plod along, displaying their own formal logic with little concern for a listener. What sounds mostly non-referential (read: abstract) is likely the result of several discrete sound sources – field recordings, live improvisation, electronic or electrified instruments – though what and how these are treated, is anyone’s guess. 

There is a flat-footed allusion to subjects in The Frost Of Time’s centrepiece, “a horse, a mirror, a ship, the sea,” but these references feel more esoteric than actual, something to boost the rhetoric of the temporal. I tried, rather in vain, to find an organizing logic within this contrapuntal system, whether musically or thematically, but failed where I am sure others are destined to succeed. Literary and textual jargon aside, The Frost Of Time is often at pains to deliver on its metaphorical promises, feeling as hermetic and self-referential as a well-mastered wav file. And is that such a bad thing? Well, I suppose that depends on one’s patience for the cult of self-discovery that usually motivates such work, where we need some kind of map to figure out where all of this is headed, and by rights, where we stand in the picture. In this case, someone else is holding the map.    

For those who enjoy microtextural, abstract soundscapes – highly ambient, but more foreground than background – free from the weight of rhythm or rationality.