Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Rosalind Hall - Drift [Cassauna - 2019]

Rosalind Hall is an Australian avant garde musician credited with several ambient/drone recordings with stark, minimalist packaging.  Drift is the newest such release, a cassette tape released on the Cassauna label this year in 2019.  The tape features flat grey artwork and three pieces of music roughly twenty minutes each.

The entirety of the first piece takes place in the low frequency realm, a murmuring and stirring of activity underneath a heavy blanket.  There is a regular recurrent thump that forms an anchor: a percussive texture, but likely not a drum.  A siren-song of resonant feedback undulates descriptively and intentionally, winding snake-like through the subterrain.  A vision seen through steam or smoke, the dream country is invoked from behind the palpable ash dimness.  The mood created harkens back to classic stygian dark ambient records of the 90's like Lustmord's Heresy, though here there are no explicit, recognizable sounds such as tribal drums, and the volume level is kept lower.  Ghosts have been encouraged to populate this etheric ambiguity; there are the faint hints of many presences.

These drones are sourced from a saxophone with an acoustic spring verb attachment, according to the liner notes.  Though the first track is masked and reverberant enough that this is not necessarily clear, the second piece, the titular "Drift", has significantly more melodic material, and several clear instances of the signature reedy metallic tone of the sax.  Lonely foghorn tones are layered, striking dissonant forboding intervals.  The uniquely clashing overtone structure of the instrument is drawn out as the horn is made to growl, then muted and hushed again with the misty mask of reverberation.

The fact that the music is the result of an instrumental performance allows it to morph organically, carry an immediacy and remain engaging through its many pockets of shifting irregularity.  Rosalind has made another case for the incredible timbral richness of acoustic instruments as sources for electronic ambient music, joining the work of my favorite groups such as Aglaia, Alio Die or Tenhornedbeast, who created doom ambience out of guitar in a similar manner as Rosalind Hall uses a sax.

The recording may not be for everyone, as it maintains a very low energy level, and does not build into a drastically new realm at any point, generally being a sleepy, nocturnal record.  The three pieces do not contrast widely from each other.  That said, it has a vast amount of tonal variety and evocative qualities.

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Josh Landry
Latest Reviews

Rosalind Hall - Drift
Rosalind Hall is an Australian avant garde musician credited with several ambient/drone recordings with stark, minimalist packaging.  Drift is the newes...
190424   Zachary James Watkins - Affir...
180424   Ulvtharm - 7 Uthras
180424   The Bad Shepherd - The Bad Sh...
180424   Impulse - Impulse( Blu Ray)
170424   Jan Jelinek - Social Engine...
170424   Carlos “Zíngaro”, Guilherme R...
160424   The Borderlands - The Borderl...
160424   Rien - The New Source Recording
160424   Worship - Thoughts
150424   Lion-Girl - Lion-Girl(Blu Ray)
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom