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Band: Conversations About The Light Album: A Retrospective Album Year: 2007 Label: Ominous Recordings Genre(s): Dark Ambient/Noise Band Website: http://www.catlprod.com/
Rating: 8.5/10
The Swedish label, Ominous Recordings, does us a wonderful service by bringing to light a collection of previously unreleased and/or scattered material by US project, Conversations About The Light. “A Retrospective” takes the listener deep into the history of the brainchild of Robert Osgood with each track more iniquitous and older than the last. A compiling of various periods in time and various states of mind, this album is an excellent example of the assorted shades of color that Conversations About The Light can use.
The album opens up with a beautiful dark ambient piece of over 15 minutes in length. Eventually the hit comes; a barrage of noise. Tweaked out synths scream and wail only to eventually drown in the ghostlike ambience. The album tends to mix and blur the line between ambient and noise, sometimes being incredibly abrasive while other times unsettlingly soothing. This album is injected with pure atmospheric layers of synthetic experimentation.
The noise here is definitely noisy, but it doesn’t seem to get old or tedious. There exists some excellent composition buried beneath the layers of white noise. When the harsh electronics kick in I can’t help but to think of the masterful Gruntsplatter. What’s nice with this album is that there is a fair balance between noise and ambient, so there is plenty to explore.
All in all, “A Retrospective” is an impressive collection of sounds. The ambient tracks are incredibly accessible, allowing one to easily drift and investigate the soundscapes. The noisier elements serve as a refreshing juxtaposition and carry a lot of weight on this release. This piece of work carries a lot of depth and dimensionality as I’ve found myself discovering new surprises upon each listen. I can’t help but to recommend this album, especially since it is only limited to 150 copies.
- Jason May 2007 |