Title: Fake Polarity
Artist: Darvillers Ghost
Release Date: 2013 Nov 20
Genre: Dark Ambient / Drone / Atonal
License: CC BY-NC-SA
Release Label: Textural Records / Bandcamp
With the changing of the season here from fall to winter, I find myself spending more time indoors. Less sunlight hours mean more time spent in the darkness. And the cold and snow of this season makes it more likely that I will spend my time at home, rather than out with friends on the weekend. The world becomes a much more bleak, white and grey place. And my mood and attitudes reflect the changes all around me.
Maybe it’s because of these seasonal changes that I find more warmth and comfort in Dark Ambient works such as the three releases from Darvillers Ghost this year. The constant phasing and shifting of the tonal pallet in these tracks have a consistency, like a lifeline that connects past the coldness and isolation of the season. They reach a place within me that feels like it is on life support, barely holding on to the thread of life.
They also allow my attention to focus on the tasks around me. They form a sonic background that isn’t distracting or invasive.
It’s easy to describe these works as random generative pieces produced by computer application. That would, in fact, almost serve to trivialize the accomplishment of these works by Darvillers Ghost. The artist behind these works knows how to produce and engineer a recording. The pieces appear to have been selected and edited from a series of works, and assembled in a manner that form a pure sonic image in black, white and thousands of shades of grey.
This is definitely the kind of work that I believe Brian Eno would say fit perfectly in his model of ambient and generative works. It’s not a stretch to say that these are the kinds of works that anyone in the ambient field should look to when trying to understand how to approach this kind of music. These tracks are uncomplicated, yet very lush; minimal, but not repetitive; atonal but non-alienating; mechanical sounding but not abrasive. Basically, a combination of attributes that is welcome and will win many people over.
[Note: Textural Records migrated to BandCamp. During the migration they set up separate BandCamp pages for each artist in their collective. So, while the link below may appear to go to the artist’s BandCamp page, it is really part of Textural Records. Confused? Yeah, so was I…]
Darvillers Ghost: Fake Polarity
Name Your Price
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