Double your pleasure, double your fun; I’m sharing to two, two-track releases today that I’m stuck on.
First up is “Helios” by Aeons and Monuments. This features two excellent longer tracks. The first, “Helios (out of the…),” is basically a three-part suite. The first section hits with heavy, distorted guitar; sort of post-rock with some black metal and crust-beat seasoning. As we move to the middle third of the song it almost sounds like it may be ending but, as the noisy guitar disappears, some heavenly synth takes over; it’s like we’ve gone through a storm and then suddenly hit clear skies. The last third last combines the elements of the first two sections of the song as it builds loud and dramatic, but ultimately reaches a peaceful conclusion.
“Zenith” is up next and at first seems like a completely different animal. It has a slowly shifting drone with a light pulse underneath until about halfway through when the distorted guitar comes back (this time sounding something like angry surf guitar) and moves to the fore of a very dense composition, including some yelled vocals low in the mix. Intense.
And extra shout out for the beautiful cover art as well (featuring my cousin Triangle).
Next up is “Building a Beehive” by James Lawrence Wolf & Raven Bauer Durham. These two tracks feature beautiful interplay between guitar and violin. The title track has gentle, rolling guitar lines bubbling underneath some slightly skittish violin. To me it sounds like the musical equivalent of the hive coming to life on a spring morning. Maybe the violin represents bees on this track? The second song (“Île de la forêt“) is a slight bit darker and more dissonant. The production distorts the instrument sounds a bit into some ringing drone washes under a more unsettled violin; it’s not a drastic change from the first track but definitely sets a different mood. These songs are from a forthcoming album (hurray!) so we’ll soon get to hear more of this awesome collaboration.
