Wolfram — X
Opening with the frenzied sound of a swarm of bees, rising to fearful sonic levels, the music immediately brings to life a fresh and vivid character. A tightly controlled selection of elements are introduced with careful precision, a sequence of rich timbres gradually unfolding. The summary of an intimate space, each sound murmurs with a reassuring regularity, like the steady rhythms of waves lapping on the beach.
It turns out most of the sounds on the album are not field recordings. Instead, Wolfram explores highly processed digitally sourced textures, sculpted static which pumps and breathes, sputtering interference like wind patterns translated into digital data. Layered cleverly into the mix are subtlely undulating high frequency shimmer, hinted microrhythms. Carefully listening reveals so many glimmers, whirrs, and faint rustlings. Wolfram allows a tinnitus like ringing frequency to creep insistently, and swirl circular around the listener. This places the music firmly within the world of labels like 12k and Raster Noton, which often release music that sees synthetic textures blurred into windswept desert expansiveness.
It is an incredibly dense and detailed recording, an interactive universe in and of itself. Even when a largely digital sound palette is employed, there is the sense of observing inert natural surroundings, which exist independent of anyone's attention to them. I can scarcely think of any album with a more immersive and three dimensional acoustic space. It has a potent psychic force.
A great strength of the album is the smoothness with which Wolfram passes from ominous, threatening dimness to thoughtful, sentimental reveries in which a sense of security and peace accompanies the solitude. The album has two chordally driven tracks, "Introspektiv" and "N:xizhe", which aren't far from 'traditional' ambient music like Steve Roach, repeating a mesmerizing harmony sequence with a warm, classic pad.
The closer, "Secret Humans" is the most odd and haunting of all, reintroducing field recordings with thunder, rain and wet scraping, like a rock being scraped. The last few minutes of the track are filled with trancelucent banshee wails, like a forest stirred to manic life. These sounds bring me the fleeting image of pre-industrial human life, the lost sensation of being surrounded and possessed by the formidable, massive natural order.
This album is utterly complete, perfectly paced, telling a thoroughly considered story with complimentary, balanced pieces. It is emotionally gripping, affecting at some kind of primal level, the soundtrack to shivering the night through alone on a mountain, exposed to the elements. I shall have to investigate Wolfram's previous work.