By: Si Forster
Oscillotron | website | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on May 27, 2016 via Cineploit
Weather permitting, I try to get my first impressions of new records outside. There’s something about having the senses relaxed that really lets new music seep in. This is the exception that proves the rule, as it made a nice walk on a deserted pathway in the middle of nowhere something to be dreaded, such is its power to disorient and unnerve.
Over the course of the past four years or so, the Synth-horror genre has become somewhat oversubscribed. The classics have been repackaged, reissued, reinterpreted and then rinsed and repeated to the point where unless more than a little bit of thought is put into any new release, then the whole thing sounds jaded and tired before you can even get to the end of the first song.
Thankfully, Oscillotron manages to swerve any such accusations by applying a broader set of influences and degrees of separation to make Cataclysm come across as both fresher and brighter than its peers. Casting his net either side of a gene-safe cinematic 1980s synthesised pomp, Kongh frontman (and Cult of Luna touring member) David Johansson has spent the best part of four years putting together a high-drama, high-impact set of pieces that capture the essence of a cinematic work without being burdened by the usual “soundtrack without a film” tag.
In a very vague nutshell, if Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest was a palindromic pre/post-apocalyptic dystopia, Cataclysm is the bit in the middle. It’s variously threatening, calm, beautiful and angry, with the end result feeling like you’re right of the middle of something huge and terrible happening, but are never quite sure what or why. From the off, ‘Mirage’ captures the attention and imagination with a doom-laden pulse from somewhere off in the distance, getting closer and closer before the main tune arrives, a mixture of light sequencing with heavier washes reminiscent of Tangerine Dream or Goblin. These touchstones are a fair reflection on Cataclysm’s ethos, as if we’re to look at this in a filmic sense, we’re nudging more towards the Progressive end of the synthesised spectrum of The Keep, Inferno and Suspiria than the more percussive stabs of what was going on at the same time in the US.
When Cataclysm roots itself in territory more becoming of Johansson’s day job in ‘Mutation’, the shift in mood becomes palpable as the Vangelis-like herald is matched by huge stabs of gloom, neither side giving quarter to each other and ending up coiling pleasantly around each other. It’s this balanced sense of duality that gives Cataclysm its place. When it’s light, it’s weird enough to disorient. When it’s dark, there’s a glimmer of something to navigate by.
It’s getting harder to pick individual bright (or otherwise) spots in a very oversubscribed and limited genre, as this is what killed a lot of it off in the mid-80s in the first place. Oscillotron seems to have carved something different enough to stand out from its genre peers enough to warrant more than just a second glance.
