UHUSHUHU — Bones & Drones

Bones & Drones is a example of long-form eventful and layered ambient, with subtle hints of ethno-ambience, lulling water sounds, and allusive/mysterious harmonies. The release comes in the form of a CD/digital download, with the single forty five minute piece moving along in a slowly developing organic manner.

UHUSHUHU is from Russia and has been active since 2014. So far the project has put out around nine albums- taking stand-alone & splits, and seemingly many of these feature long-form tracks- so the project certainly has experience with creating longer forms of ambience.

The whole thing opens in a rather pared-back & brooding manner- with whistling/ waveringly barren ambient flute-like tones, fairly soon a shimmering & rattling textures are introduced, and these are underfed by a watery sort of constant lapping vibe- these stay for much of the track's runtime. As we move on UHUSHUHU nicely builds & subtle shifts the track adding in drifting ebbs and slowly cascading layers of ambient synth- some of these are brooding & unsettling, while others are warming & harmonic. We also get more subtle layers of underplayed ethno rhythmic textures, and towards the end more defined moments of both haunting harmonics & shimmer/ rattling percussive matter. It’s very much a track you have to let nudge and ebb around your listening space, as it sends you off to a lulling-yet-at-times surreally organic sonic place.

Bones & Drones is my first taster of UHUSHUHU work, and I must say it’s a good example of more eventful ambient- with the project adding in some fairly interesting and distinct touches to the long-form ambient form.