This is a double 3″, with 14 and 17 minutes recorded per CDR. I’ve given up on trying to find anything about Black Mirage. Hint: It’s not a Swedish Hardstyle producer. These two CDs contain ‘improvised strums on dulcimer over pulses of synthesis’. And that’s it. I could have ended the review here, but I won’t because there is so much more to tell.
The dulcimer is a sound everybody with a synthesiser knows because it’s in every sound bank everywhere on every wave-based synth. Sometimes, at analogues also where they did tried to get to the original sound. Well, here it’s a dulcimer being played. There is so much more to this instrument than you would have expected. At moments, it’s a bit of a gothic feel like you’re listening to Lisa playing her yangqin; at other moments, it’s like eclectic guitar picking. But what it’s not: A piano or synth being played with the sound of a dulcimer. It is so much more.
The background over which the dulcimer is played is a minimal synth background, some additional sweeps, drones not unlike what could have been a hurdy-gurdy or some ancient Australian device. And so this release creates a very structured atmosphere, though there are two tracks I have to mention explicitly. “Eve of Diamonds” where it seems like either the sound manipulation of the original dulcimer has made it so that the background instrument (synths) has become the lead, and then there is “Hunger Stone” where either a harmonica is added or the synth has also gotten a second function. Very nicely done, down to earth. Fitting for a Vital? I don’t know. Fitting for an anti-fascist label? Always. Fitting for a Sunday afternoon on the couch? Ohw yeah …
Comments
Post a Comment