BASS COMMUNION – SISTERS OREGON
A 10″ vinyl record in the Substantia Innominata series on Drone Records – a series ‘presenting works inspired by or related to “the Unknown” around or within us.’
Substantia Innominata seems like a perfect series for this new release by Bass Communion, Steven Wilson‘s alias for ‘experiments in texture’, his ‘discrete medium for manifesting his most daring, challenging and obscure musical ideas.’
Like many previous titles release under this moniker, Sisters Oregon presents a deep drone piece in four parts, filled with sub-bass, mysterious atmospheres, and some scene shifts to keep attention.
Not as extremely minimal as, for example, Loss or Pacific Codex, but still ” filled with sonorous drone expanses, tiny microsounds, deep bass eruptions and sudden breaks, ranging from an otherworldly subtleness to a most spacious finale…”
There is no information about the meaning of the title (it could simply refer to the place called Sisters in Oregon, though that location doesn’t seem to be nearly as mysterious as the music is).
This is a vinyl (10″) only release; there is no digital edition available.
BASS COMMUNION – SISTERS OREGON – PART 1
ORPHAX – SOMNIÃTÕRĒS
Sietse ‘Orphax’ van Erve is a dedicated admirer of the work of Eliane Radigue. His admiration can be heard in his own work, which focuses on creating minimalist drones, long-form pieces that make you lose your sense of time and alter your awareness of the space around you. It may be an acquired taste for some, but once you hear the soundwaves and their harmonics interact it is a fascinating experience.
Somniãtõrēs (no idea if that is an existing word in any language) is a 60 minute drone piece about sleep, and it’s a perfect soundtrack to doze away on. It is a single piece, but there are some distinct segments, variations where the emphasis on the different sound elements subtly shift, or when some new elements are places on the sound canvas. Because of these changes the piece is dynamic enough to keep the interest for the full hour (although there is of course sóme contradiction in a ‘drone’ being ‘dynamic’).
CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSSWOLFF – STILL LIFE – REQUIEM
A 30 minute piece (split in two parts to fit the LP format) dedicated to ‘certain sole or severeal restless souls that wander our worlds looking for a place to call home’.
Still Life – Requiem is created from sounds extracted from ‘physical matter’ using a technique called emission spectroscopy, where the frequencies that are generated from the material is analysed and transferred into listenable pitches. In this respect, it is a Requiem for the soul within the inanimate (I assume: since it’s not specified which materials were used in the spectroscopy).
Using this technique does not automatically lead to a musical composition, of course. For the source material to become a composition, CM von Hausswolff manipulated, stretched, looped and equalised it into a composition dedicated to the energy in all things around us.
“A requiem radiates calm, peace and perhaps comfort for tormented spiritual beings – it’s a piece dedicated to promote and insert tranquility and transcendence.”