Graves and Orchestra Pits — Self Titled
After several listens, it's a little easier to see how musicians that formerly played post rock could have conceived of this music, as there are melodic progressions and riffs with similar wet, expansive guitar tones, somber sentimentality and patient pacing as bands Sigur Ros. What is most remarkable about this project is the level of orchestration and textural embellishing they have done. Each 1 - 2 minute section of each song uses different sounds and instruments, often instruments that are heard nowhere else on the album! Furthermore, it's obvious that none of this was done to impress anyone, rather the artists soul searched to find the perfect timbral voice to express each idea. The result is that each miniature movement feels the next stop on a journey in a lush, complete sonic world.
The beginning of the album is a jarring experience. "Thlock", the opener, is 52 seconds of orchestral tune up, which abruptly cuts into "Spill the Unicorn Blood", a 10 minute opus that opens with a very loud amplifier hiss that could make many listeners nervous. One feels that an amplifier has been turned to inhumane volume, and could deafen them at any moment. The band milks this effect, but chooses a more interesting musical path than simple sonic force: a quiet, but very shrill electronic tone pierces into the mix like a thin needle and dissolves back into the hiss, then shimmering mallet percussion and thick doom metal guitar tones break in their pleasurable tones a couple times, before a krautrock build up begins. This is how the album often is - beauty appears just at the brink of utter ugliness.
Anchored by a single fuzz bass note, a motorik 4/4 provides the heartbeat for spacey processed improvisation that quickly becomes very intense. This section of the song culminates in a rousing stoner rock unison riff, then descends into the breathless beauty of ethereal ambience for the next several minutes. From there, they add more chiming percussion, washes of watery synthesizer, and finally a lamenting solo from an acoustic guitar before the piece ends with very quiet wind, and bird calls in the distance. The many twists and turns of this track should give some indication of the scope and unpredictability of this album!
Of all the songs, perhaps the 3rd track "Moles" seems most like by-numbers post rock at first, but halfway through its running length, it dissipates entirely into a hazy, sluggish cloud of dreamy shoegaze chords, lounge music so slow it threatens to stop entirely. It captures the deeply relaxed feeling of the slowest moments of Stereolab or Cocteau Twins, just in time to jar the listener completely out of it with a flourish of ring modulated math rock frustration.
Another favorite, "Winterlichten", is a reverent, magickally charged 5 minute hypnotic ambient piece fashioned from loops, in the tradition of groups like Coil, Nocturnal Emissions and Cyclobe. Muted footsteps dance in a broken rhythm around a resounding periodic chime. Whisps of metallic resonance and tremolo picked guitar flesh out the second half of the track.
"Knochenanker / Mouth of Light" begins in a powerful rock fashion with some surging, brooding riffage, and a drummer absolutely letting loose with some amazing fills and groovy playing. The latter "Mouth of Light" half is a strange universe of percussive pitch stretched sounds, chittering bugs, tropical birds and rattling percussion. True beauty is achieved when perfectly tuned winds enter with soft consonant chords.
The closer "Sudbanj" is a sinister, angular noise construction, using an irregularly timed loop of bass pulsations to counterbalanced various other glitch materials. A maze of digital tones is created, exploring cold spectrums of dissonance. Ominous piano tones enter, then refuse to die out, thus muddying each other into an unwelcoming murk. The claustrophic collage cuts out without warning, and the album ends.
Conclusively, this album is a masterpiece. Every other track easily measures up to those I have described. My words simply cannot do this album justice. These musicians have synthesized at least a dozen styles into a beautiful, listenable recording which takes the listener on an epic journey. With this kind of versatility, these guys should do film scores. Any adventurous fan of music must hear this album! My favorite release on Utech Records thus far.