(((O))) : Aires – Fantasma EP

Aires’ recent EP, Fantasma, on Bad Panda encroaches slowly and soon drifts above with a static drone that seems to cling to the walls as much as it clings to the sky. In the distance, weaving itself in and out of the synthetic waves, a  distorted voice seems to speak in distress, or some form of hallucinated calm. Half-way through “Fantasma I” the drone drifts out and leaves only the distorted voice. Much of this beginning track reminds me of the better moments of Tim Hecker or early Belong. Static drops like rain accompanying the voice once more before giving way and shifting into a more digitized rendering, recalling 70’s and 80’s film score pioneers, a shift I would have liked to have heard extended, but unfortunately resolves into the ether.

“Fantasma II,” bridges the beginning to the ending, but is by no means a forgotten track. In fact, over the years, I have grown to love the ambient tracks that are able to invoke such feeling in a short amount of time. It reminds me fondly of tracks like “Corsair,” and “In The Annexe,” by Boards of Canada, airy, like a hollowed out building with nothing left but the wind and reverberating echoes to fill it’s halls.

The closing track, “Fantasma III,” builds from a low hum that coats that back of your head and more static distortion that peppers the ground until high frequency pitches battle the range in which they resound clearly like crystal or shatter like a siren. This surrealistic landscape develops and envelops throughout the rest of the track and closes the album leaving the listener in a state of strangely agitated content. Shards of glass and splintered metal rub against each other and sing in combination with washes of synthetic light, leaving the album in it’s most natural sounding state, unpredictable.