Iren Popova — Age of Space Storms

Appearing on largely walled noise-based label Void Singularity Recordings here’s Age of Space Storms- which is somewhat of a departure for the label, as what we have here is more dense space-bound noise ambience with some  drifting harmonic touches. This release appeared in early summer last year as C60- featuring the same track on both sides of the tape.

Iren Popova began life in late 2017- it’s the DIY experimental/drone project from Thessaloniki, Greece based Karl Grümpe. The projects put out around seven releases thus far- and I believe this is the first work I've heard thus far from the project. And I must say the track here’s not bad, as space-bound drone goes- though at times some of the layer placement sounds a little amateurish- though not enough to throw the whole track.

The clear red tape labeled tape is presented in a clear with a sleeve featuring an illustration of a deep red sun against an in shadow mountain scape- the release came in an edition of twenty copies, and as of this review the label still has copies.

The track opens with a blend of churning reverb & darkly glow simmer- it sounds as if the origin of this may well be a looped guitar texture, that’s been fed through a pedal of some form. By around the three-minute mark, we get a blend of a distant male-like choir with a sudden darting female counterpart- initial these sound a little awkward & haphazard, though thankful soon the control becomes a little better. As we progress the original tones remain constant- with the choir elements departing to be replaced by first rising harmonic drone, then snippets of simmer ethnic ambeince & what sounds like a looped phone voice sample of a woman talking. As we go on these elements appear/ disappear to replace by others- with only the initial drone staying through-out.  So in reviewing the track- I like the main drone tones- these have a feeling of both ritual machine type purr & foreboding simmer, the other elements that are drifted over this main element are largely rewarding/ interesting- and do pull one in more, the problem is at times their placement feels a little roughshod & awkward- going on from sounding like they are presets, miss pressed, or when they work fairly organic & moody- and that’s unfortunately what makes this track a little uneven.

It’s always nice to see a label that largely known for one sub-genre to putting out something from another genre- and I’d say that if you like more lo-fi drone, with at times slightly erratic layer placement then give Age of Space Storms a go. I’ll certainly like to hear future work from Iren Popova, as they do have their own take on the drone thing- I feel they just need to polish up some of their production/ mixing skills.