Viktor Timofeev — Palace of Peace and Reconciliation

Palace of Peace and Reconciliation severs up four slices of warped and waving electro soundscaping that’s edged with atmospherics guitar texturing and other moody elements. The LP/ CD release is meant to be the soundtrack for a long past digital era, so it’s the audio equivalent of jumping in a time machine several 100 years when mankind has finally snub it’s self out…finding all that’s left been decaying and malfunctioning tech.

Viktor Timofeev is Riga Latvia-born visual artist and music producer, who's been active since the early 2000’s- creating a mix of solo art/ sound exhibitions, as well as a few collaborative exhibitions too. He's also released a few albums. Palace of Peace and Reconciliation appeared in August of this year on Lo Bit Landscapes - as either a LP & CD release, or a digital download- I’m reviewing a CD promo of the release, so can’t really comment on the packaging for either the LP or CD.

The release kicks off with "Tevek Fritoivo"- this comes in at the nine-minute and fifty-second mark. It opens with sudden electro darts, then we get very warped and pitch-bent synth stabs coming into play, these are added to by cascading through again very warped electro-music box tones. As we move further in the whole thing becomes more oppressively warped and densely overlaid, with string slices( not sure if they're real or not), and sudden textural sputters been bent and added to the mix. The track nicely bays and swirls in a melted manner- starting off proceedings in a very wonky dying tech manner. Moving onto track number two and we have the choppy 'n' tolling 80’s pop-rock guitar meets mulchy like electro warp ‘n’ haze of "Memoriatorium"- this just over three-minute track comes off like a distant, more clearly harmonic cousin of Oneohtrix Point Never more recent work.  

The rest of the release is taken up by the three Portal tracks- there’s the nearing eight minutes of “Portal Of Zin 1”- which finds a grand and rising synth/ string melody get slow, but surely more hazed/ stretched. There’s the epic nearing eighteen minutes of "Portal Of Accord( feat Alienboy)"- this opens with a blend of whistling 'n' warbling synth tones which are overlaid by strange male vocal bays ‘n’ bounces. As we move further in the baying ‘n’ stretching vocal tones, get blended and at points blurred with stabbing pitch shift synth tones, which are backed eerier warbling ambient ebbs, and fleeting/ dart electro tones. As the track continines a more haunting and waving graceful-ness comes into play, and these are joined by shredding mid-range noise like texturing…before once more return the warped and overlayed electro soundscaping meets vocal-like harmonic lullings. With the album( or the version we’ve been sent) finishing off with grimly waving organ tones meets warbling ‘n’ waving tone simmers of the nearing three and a half minutes of “Portal Of Zin 2”.

With Palace of Peace and Reconciliation Timofeev managers to create an album that sits nicely between decayed future soundtracking and warped, at points noised up electro texturing. Not having the full packaging to hand for this one I do feel I’m missing out somewhat with the whole concept of the release- but of course, understand why this can’t always be possible. All in all, if you enjoy futuristic soundtracking- with warped at points moodily noisy touches I’d say Palace of Peace and Reconciliation will be of interest.