Shade Themes From Kairos is a new iteration of
the dream for all the guitar freaks out there, bringing together a couple of
singular players together, just to see what happens. In this case, the players
were old friends and collaborators Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley,
playing in a space engineered and co-populated by Randall Dunn.
The Shade album began in 2009, when Belgian filmmaker
Alexis Destoop asked Ambarchi and O'Malley to score
his short feature, "Kairos." Randall Dunn was their first and best
choice to record and co-produce the music - and as the session progressed, all
three men found themselves acting as a trio to bring the music. In the end, this
album was made by a trio of players. Decamped in an old radio station in
Kortrijk, Belgium, they filled a bare, stripped live broadcast room with the
needed equipment as well as other amazing old pieces made available by the
gearheads of the European lowlands.
With guitars, drums, analog synthesizers, vibes, crotales,
Sruti box and a mellotron, deep emanations were evoked, while other spirits
emerged from the old wooden sound panels in the room - the ghosts of music
makers past? It will suffice to say that all who were there contributed
something. The soundtrack was completed - but the vast space they'd discovered
together required deeper investigation. Ambarchi, O'Malley and Dunn determined
to go further with the music, reconvening back at Randall's ALEPH Studio in
Seattle (now RIP), where further recording and mixing was done.
In the end, all the sites, people, instruments, rooms and
distance, had come together to make a deep trip down varied paths in successful
pursuit of the sound, realised once again, this time as Shade Themes From
Kairos, by Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O'Malley and Randall Dunn.
To sythesise the mood of the music, artwork was commissioned
from the Russian symbolist Denis
Kostromitin, who provided astonishing visuals that matched the
mutations of the album.
TRACK BY TRACK NOTATION...
From the top, Shade Themes From Kairos is resonant as
a collective inquest in sound, with all the players deeply immersed within the
panorama they are creating. "That Space Between" blows in from a
distance, rolling rhythmically, with synthetic percussion chattering, before it
settles into a stately pace, as the guitars wind ethereal around the
procession. Under the beat lies always space, and as the cadential clusters
drift off, metal chimes and keys sputter and dig deep and clean through the
abyss.
"Temporal, Eponymous" shines with guitar
distortions and drum explosions, combining to create a tonal fugue state that
swells as it loops around, climaxing with the thrill of guitars and drums
crashing forward as waves of mellotron suddenly burst from their belly.
"Circumstances of Faith" dawns dark and damp, with
electric waves and flashes of analog synth, stark yet sinuous, an environment
growing into our ears. More frantic drums from Ambarchi swing into the picture,
joined by Tor Deitrichson's tabla, in best Badal Roy fashion, while the guitars
ascend the path to self-destruction and plunge everthing over the edge into
pure nothingness.
From the mist comes the ruminative piece
"Sometimes," featuring Ai Aso on vocals amidst brushed drums, cutting
through a web of acoustic and electric guitars.
For the finale, the cleansing call of electricity is
summoned, as the guitars of Ambarchi and O'Malley arc and drone, slowly passing
through a profusion of moods and moments, leaving the listener purified at the
foot of the "Ebony Pagoda." What a passage it has been!
TRACK LISTING:
1. That Space Between
2. Temporal, Eponymous
3. Circumstances of Faith
4. Sometimes
5. Ebony Pagoda
2. Temporal, Eponymous
3. Circumstances of Faith
4. Sometimes
5. Ebony Pagoda
Source : Rarely Unable
