 Hollydrift
"This Way To Escape" CD
Public
Eyesore
Genres: experimental, ambient, sound sculpture
Bryan Day / PE
3803 S 25th St.
Omaha, NE 68107
Oct 14 - 20 2002 |
Two
weeks down the line and I'm becoming quite addicted to this CD. Using
soundbites, noises, sound manipulations, and various other
experimental audio techniques, Hollydrift creates complex
experimental sound sculptures that manage to spark both interest and
entertainment in the listener's ears.
That said, though, it's important to note that Hollydrift's
music is also mortifyingly dark. Using creepy ambient electronics,
frightening melodies, and eerie beats, the ten songs on this disc
sound like Coil playing in a graveyard at night to an audience of
restless zombies and corpses.
Take "Always Looking West," for example. Starting with a
minor-key synth-chord pattern, the sounds are slowly broken apart,
making way for a bizarre number-station sample and then an onslaught
of decaying chant vocals and dilapidated grunge atmospherics. As time
elapses, the sounds are slowly pared down and in comes the synth-chords
again, this time sounding more eerie and distorted than before.
Gradually, the track comes down, ending in a bizarre, repeated
dialtone sound.
"Cloudy Lie The Fields," meanwhile, is an almost
seven-minute track that lays various jarring sounds over an electronic
ambiance, creating a perfect mixture of audio stew to carry you into a
warped trance. Halfway through, various echoing sounds of industrial
appliances are introduced into the track, making for a surreal
agglomeration of mechanical noises that remind you about how
machine-based our world is becoming.
While Hollydrift's music may require a relatively large
attention span to fully enjoy, there is no denying that This Way To
Escape is an extremely dark, potent album of experimental
electronic music. And though other sound artists are busy composing
glitchy symphonies of sound and minimalist audio art, Hollydrift
instead injects us with his own brand of dark, sample-ridden noise
concoctions. Perhaps I'm the only one saying this, but I have no
trouble stating that This Way To Escape is one of 2002's most
enjoyable experimental albums.
90%
Matt Shimmer [Vitals:
approx. 53 min; 10 tracks; distributed by the
label;
released 2002] |
