Robert Crouch — Organs

Here’s a cd from Dragons Eye Recordings, presented in a cleanly designed card wallet. It’s austere without being overly formal: there’s something a little bit polite about it, actually. The album contains three long tracks; the shortest is ten minutes, the next longest twice that, and the longest nearly half an hour. ‘Drones’ are the order of the day.

The album starts, perhaps mischievously, with several minutes of woody clanging and scraping; possibly originating from a guitar - certainly something stringed. These percussive slaps and wire-y twangs are processed to a degree; but frankly to no great end. It’s a strange non-start to the proceedings. Underneath these acoustic sounds, electronic drones rise and fall; as well as field recordings of conversations, birdsong, and children’s cries. Whilst these snippets of daily life only appear a few times during ‘Somniloquy (an egg): A Choreography of Emancipation’, the drones are much more present; swirling around the rougher, more dynamic elements, until, by the end of the piece, they dominate the sound-field. These long tones aren’t static or ‘formal’ in any way, they ebb and flow, in and out of the track. As the first piece comes to a close, it reaches a state of thick drone, punctuated by bassy rumbles. This droning is then taken up and further explored in the second track: the twenty-eight minute long, ‘The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth’. This is a much more severe track than the first, less colourful and dynamic. It’s centred around quiet drones - though I use ‘quiet’ not so much in terms of volume, than in presence and activity. It’s initially founded on a strings-like, background drone; which provides a dark, nervous undercurrent to the elements that emerge later. These later tones are less overtly ‘dark’, but regardless, the track carries a bleak, eerie atmosphere. After a while it opens out, taking on a warmer tone; but a general sense of stasis remains: it doesn’t really go anywhere, drifting along somewhat listlessly. The third and final track, ‘The Propaganda of History’, again ends up in drone territory - though it begins with several minutes of looped voice and percussion. After this, somewhat ‘unexplained’, starting section, the piece develops into a pure, sweet drone; probably the nicest part of the album. It builds and dissipates, until reaching a modulating climax.

‘Organs’ isn’t earth-shattering on any level; it’s not remotely ‘bad’, but neither does it have any spark inside it, which demands to be heard. Curiously, there’s a ‘soft’ academic feel to it - the opening section of the album, for example - but I can’t help but feel that it’s oddly reminiscent of ‘old school’ ambient music. The same waves of droning pads, same use of everyday sounds and chatter; even the looping on ‘The Propaganda of History’ reminds me of similar ‘clumsy’ work to be heard in that area. So, it’s something of an oddity, but possibly not in the best sense.