Sven Phalanx — Navigation

Here is another mini-CDR from Inner Demons Records, featuring the work of Sven Phalanx whom I was completely ignorant of, I’m afraid. The packaging and artwork is very diy, and that’s great; in a time when noise releases can be increasingly professional or deluxe there’s something refreshing about a no frills, old school, ‘bedroom released’ noise album: those expensive Urashima vinyl reissues you buy started off like this. Navigation has five tracks, all reasonably different and all ranging from around three minutes to five minutes in length.

The first track, ‘Tunnel System’ is really great; it’s a drone, and I always like short drones - something mini-CDRs encourage… It shifts constantly, but maintains a sense of stasis, which is technically impressive and again something I enjoy; so there’s modulating and different overtones, and a lot of colour, and despite the title the piece actually evokes multiple planes falling out of the sky. Next up, ‘Father & Son’ also has drone elements, but here they are accompanied by an echoing thump and what sounds like a shaker. It’s a very restrained palette and it doesn’t really go anywhere; initially this is frustrating, but as the track continues this minimalism becomes engrossing and expansive. The third effort, ‘Echoes of the Shaman’, brings change: it’s much busier, and more obviously melodic, with various lines and elements. These include airy synths, buried voices and singing; the beginning has a plinky guitar but unfortunately around halfway this suddenly erupts into some… unnecessary electric guitar riffing, which also returns near the end. It’s very ‘rock’ and bizarrely interrupts the atmosphere built up to that point. Oddly, despite this track probably having the most obvious and defined structure, it feels a bit aimless. ’Infinity’ is the penultimate work, and this returns to droning territory; it’s dark, dominated by low notes, and accompanied by undulating echoes over the top. Like ‘Tunnel System’ it’s an effective, compelling track, again aided - for me - by its short length. The final track, ‘Zerstörung’, returns to the feel of ‘Echoes of the Shaman’, though here the atmosphere is definitely martial, with low string sounds over more muffled beats. These are joined by a whispered vocal (all vocals are in German, by the way) and a recording of thunder that actually made me look outside the first time I heard it. It’s the shortest track on the release, just over three minutes, and works as an effective coda.

I won’t lie, I didn’t rate ‘Echoes of the Shaman’, but the three droney pieces were really very good: solid, deep, clever in their negotiations of minimalism, and made more effective for me by their shorter lengths. ‘Echoes…’ and ‘Zerstörung’ stand apart with their busier elements but where the latter works well enough, the former is really a bit confusing, too radical a diversion from the rest of Navigation. That aside, this is a solid release and definitely worth a listen.