Duenn | Pattern
Past Inside the Present (CD/CS/DL)
The latest from Japanese electronic sound artist Duenn is Pattern. This recording is laid out in two parts, or two lengthy ambient ‘patterns’. The sonic soundscape drifts, or rather it glides along extremely fluidly. Any slight ripple is noticeable in this rather minimal composition of secluded harmony.
About five minutes in most listeners will dip slowly into a quasi consciousness. The light layers, many of them, overlap just slightly, all quite transparent, but in succession create a haze induced by a low-slung reverb and a glaze of light static. Though a cloudy density is certainly well built, the impossibility of gravitational disconnect is presented. These resonances seem incurably weightless. I’m reminded of countless documentaries of rockets zooming toward outer space, as the atmospheric layers are pierced, parts of the ship are discarded to make way for the central navigation pod, think Apollo 9 and its more glorious successors. Consider space as a whole, and altitude, and the complexity of being untethered to Mother Earth. It’s daunting, and somehow as soothing as any sleep concert I’ve ever attended.
On the flipside Pattern [part II] opens in darkness, but quickly opens with split warm and chill tonalities. We are now on a journey it seems, and the synths here are aligned with smoothly brushed lines making for quite a meditative piece. The inflections developed are more ranging in the second part, rising to a brighter hue that seems to continue expanding with each gentle modulation. If sound were nature, this would be a waterfall upon a high mountain peak.
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