mpala garoo | Vaya Adelante
Shimmering Mood Records (CD/DL)
Dark aural movements comprise Vaya Adelante by mpala garoo. Compliments a la Shimmering Moods Records, the trio delivers an album whose titular meaning is drawn from a letter of William S. Burroughs to Ginsberg. Apparently, the beats were facing the identity crashing effects of mortality and Ayahuasca. The English translates into ‘go first’ or ‘go ahead.’ For Allen Ginsberg, a permission to pass into the afterlife, a transmutation of form and being after overdosing. Meditative electro poly-rhythms syncopate along with French horn (Gosha Rodin) and bass (Maxim Ilyukhin).
Drone elements collide with sprinkles of perky flares. The opener, Feu Profonde lurks into the first of the two-part ‘Haute Maladie.’ Spagyria, space and clashing with metallic cymbal, leads to the lapping-water sounds of Voies et Meridiens. Ian Kubra’s experimental guitar work shines. There is an essence of marimba. The sound art of these moderately avant-garde atmospheres wafts like vapor more than dust. The effervescent lures and hook-free compositions are so lean. Other than in Highway Sting Suite, there isn’t a chance to not pay attention. A listener may feel rather entranced however with mild disorientation. Perhaps this affect comes with the described melding of ‘heavy’ and ‘volatile’ elements – digital and analogue interchangeably.
Aigles Volantes breaks from the pack. It has this mesmerizing two minutes of grunge guitar riffing across a reserved old-school hip hop loop. A stark interlude returns the listener to previous contexts. Omnispheres rides an 80’s kind of four-on-the-floor disco loop, claps and all. The synths whorl and organic percussion pepper’s the immediate space. Sporadic leitmotifs surface but only in punchy phases. Once the precipice is past, the album wanes back towards its psybient core, the second Haute Maladie part and Verdue Humide. These, interrupted by the aforementioned Highway Sting Suite, are continuations of the album’s satiating complexity and propose a quasi-serene closing for the album.
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