Uhuishuhu — Zvirat

Zvirat is a deeply layered, waveringly hazed, and organic-tinged take on the ambient form. With the album featuring seven largely lengthy soundscapes- which weave together threads of synth, flute, melodica, guitar tone, and field recordings/ found sound to create a drifting-yet-often harmonically glowing ‘n’ haunting sound.

Uhuishuhu are a Russian project who formed somewhere around 2014- with to date thirteen albums to their name. Zvirat is their most recent full-length- appearing late last year as a CD release on Poland’s Zoharm. It’s ltd to 300 copies, presented in a six-panel digipak.

We open with the seventeen-and-a-half minutes of “Chashchöba” which starts with a fading in matt of circling synth glow, longing flute drift, and vibe like simmer. By around the third minute slow wailing & ebbing guitar tone has been added to the mix- this gentle builds, with the addition of distant rain recordings, more synth tone glow, and gliding reverb tone.

Track number three “Mléko” is one of the shorter pieces at the minutes' twenty-five-second mark. It blends together an urgent tone simmer ‘n’ hum, dripping liquid drops, and space-bound swirls & ebbs.  All feeling like you're taking a gliding-if-drug-fueled journey through some far-off planet's aquatic cave system.

With the album playing out with just shy of eight minutes of “Povítríe”. This mixes tolling & glowingly vibe tones, swishing electro-tone sails, and building star-lined synth majestics.

As an album, Zvirat certainly feels like it’s from either the 70’s or early 80’s. Bringing to mind either a more hazed take on early Tangerine Dream, maybe a more spaced-out Popol Vuh, or a more span-out take on Ozric Tentacles.