ANGEL - Terra Null.

The new chapter in the Angel saga (Angel being the duo of Ilpo Väisänen and Dirk Dresselhaus aka Schneider TM) boasts, beyond the by-now customary presence of Hildur Guðnadóttir (featured on cello and voice in the first three movements), a collaboration with the Argentine-born saxophonist and clarinettist Lucio Capece.

The overall outcome of "Terra Null." departs from what we heard on the previous "26000", venturing into electroacoustic excursions in which, naturally, manipulation remains the founding moment for generating sonic abstractions. "Naked Land", which opens the record, lets itself be lulled by the acoustic frictions of cello and guitar, hovering within a delicate drone-laden nebula that grows ever more convinced it is an amorphous mass of sounds, echoes and reverbs in constant evolution and deformation.

In its relentless ascent, these opening twenty-six minutes end up producing a moderately interesting exercise in acoustic-electronic layering. One appreciates the interplay of shadings and the architecture of its dynamics, though a bit of trimming here and there would probably have made the whole thing more incisive. Flashes of humanity (specifically, hushed vocal intonations, almost like transcendental Om) instead take hold amid the paranoid vibrations of "Monolake", a dark shroud of "static" vertigo.

Things start to get more intriguing when Capece's winds broaden the spectrum of possibilities. So while "Colonialists" surrenders to a descending cosmic-drone continuum, "Quake", moving through silent explorations, brings the album to its peak of timbral and visionary power, letting strenuous sax wails run in parallel with an incandescent magma of disturbed frequencies, screeching drones and abrasive gashes.

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08/10/2014