Empathy Family - Maybe In My Next Life [Histamine Tapes - 2019]There are a lot of projects working within the experimental music genre of Ambient/Drone. Every day new projects appear, other projects cease their activity ... it seems that artists choose this style of music as a way to express themselves and realize their desire to create atmospheric sound. Most drone/ambient projects are normal solo ventures. However, the American project Empathy Family is a duo of- Drew Collins and Jack Williams. Unfortunately, there’s little information about either artist, but I know that Jack Williams is pretty well known in the world of Noise and Power Electronics. Empathy Family released their debut album Innards, in 2017, then a year after their second album Sleep Transmission appeared. And so, in 2019, the American label Histamine Tapes released the third Empathy Family album Maybe In My Next Life. It’s released in both in the form of a cassette and in digital form. Both options are available to order on the label's Bandcamp page. At the time of writing, there are only 2 cassettes from the edition of 24 left.
The cover is a digital collage, made in bright colours and almost monochrome. In the middle of the cover, we can see the silhouettes of people in the fog. Behind them, outlines of the fog raise the dark contours of urban buildings against a pale blue sky. To the left of the centre is an inverted image of a human figure in a window. In the foreground of all these elements is a translucent image of a part of the roof of the house and electrical wires. The composition finishes with a thin light frame that runs almost along the contour of the cover, and a light grunge texture laid on the entire composition. The album title "Maybe In My Next Life" is located at the bottom of the cover. It is written in plain black lowercase font. The title of the project is missing on the cover. I am n a fan of this type of cover, and I can’t say that the picture quality is not very good either. There is an atmosphere of phantoms and depression, yet, there is some lightness, a feeling retreating darkness. It is worth saying that the official cover described by me is different from tape J-cards. Each of the 24 J-cards is hand-made using pictures from a book on human anatomy. It turns out that each cassette is individual. I consider this a very interesting and creative approach to the release.
The album consists of ten tracks of varying lengths. The shortest is "Asphalt Dust Radix", which lasts a little over three minutes. And the longest one is "Arrow to the Brain", lasting almost eleven minutes. The total playing time of the album is a little less than fifty-nine minutes.
In the musical part of the album, Empathy Family presents us with a rather raw Drone / Ambient with Noise elements. The atmospheric drone parts here can be quite diverse - from melodic buzz based on a chord to rather extreme static moments bordering on noise textures. I’m guessing the Ambient / Drone parts were created using some kind of monophonic synthesizer and a lot of delay and reverb. By the way, applying these effects gives the album quite a tangible stereo. I think that without reverb and delay, the sound would be pretty flat. As I noted earlier, there are noise elements on the album and there are quite a few of them. I would even call it a separate line working in parallel with ambient. We can hear chaotic noises, field recording elements, processed loops, voice samples, etc. Sometimes the industrial and power electronics moments are distinguishable. All this is quite harmoniously combined with atmospheric drones. As I said, the overall sound of the album is quite raw, but it gives the sound a certain alarming mood. The sound seems ghostly and foggy. A feeling of sadness and emptiness is very clearly felt. I would like to say "Bravo" to Drew Collins and Jack Williams. If we talk about the similarity of Empathy Family and other projects working in a similar style, then I would note some similarities with Alluvium and Tor Lundvall. But these concerns, first of all, the atmosphere of the album, and not the sound. However, for me, "Maybe In My Next Life" has some controversial points. It seems to me that the use of voice samples and loops, in the form in which they are present on the album, slightly destroys the overall sound picture. Also, in some compositions, the greatest attention is paid to noise, although, in my opinion, it would be worthwhile to put the noise line in the background.
Aside from my few criticisms, I’d say that Maybe In My Next Life is a very solid and interesting album that will appeal to fans of Drone, Ambient and Noise.    Sergey Pakhomov
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