Llyn Y Cwn | Twll Du
Cold Spring (CD/DL)
Aside from the monolithic legends posed by the title this is a 100% pure drone record worthy of your suspended attention. Benjamin Ian Powell’s (Llyn Y Cwn) sound and imagery are impeccably desolate, with this sensibility that a raging core is central and pulsating. This black hole may lead some to bliss and others to cower to higher ground, though what is captured here is widely geological and encrusted with an ambient organic facade.
Though there are seven tracks this sort of weaves and washes into itself beautifully. Part volcanic, some by sea, part space travel, this is in its very own category — quite a rush. By layering thick and thin layers of interminable drone the mystery is considerable, camouflaged in every shade of grey (particularly on the title piece). Twll Du is atmospheric and raw, and somehow this combination finds its rightful place. Only three tracks in and the album already starts to feel like a hallucination.
Though I wouldn’t necessarily refer to this as particularly “blithe” there is a genuine sense that, at times, the space in which these long passages occupy are as light and buoyant as an air chamber (Y Garn). Glyder Fawr counterbalances the weight of crashing water upon the shore (in slow motion) alongside the old-fashioned hiss of snowy mid-channel television interference. Eventually the tides recede, and there are a few moments in repose until this comes crashing down in a second, more vivacious and voluminous wave.
If you simply want to kick back to a tweaking of your nerve endings this is most definitely one of the more somniferous records this season.
toneshift.wordpress.com 