The search for guidance brings a long and winding path to find your true feelings on who you really are. It helps unlock the secrets of your life, your idealism, your hope to close the doors of the past and present, and looking forward into the future. That is all of what is to come. But when it comes to the soundscaping motif, it all comes together with a combination between percussionist Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Indigo Girls), keyboardist Rupert Greenall (The Fixx), synthesist Eric “the” Taylor, and guitarist David Helpling.
They are a group called Dark Sky Alliance. Their debut album Interdwell is a visionary, sonic, illustrated guide. Each of the pieces behind their album released on the Spotted Peccary label is a true form on going beyond our solar system. The album’s inspiration goes into the cosmic atmospheres, natural worlds, and fantastical. That’s a lot of what’s going on behind their debut album.
From the moment ‘Search’ begins, it takes us into a watery landscape with piano rain drops setting up the adventure that awaits listeners with its moody-jazzy arrangements before walking into the hottest part of the tropical rainforest with intensive chants honouring the late Sonarm Targee with its mixture of Andy Summers-sque textures, latter Floyd sessions from The Division Bell, African percussion beats, and Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express on ‘Fortunate One’.
Both ‘Linear’ and ‘Warm Inlet’ has that late ‘70s, early ‘80s post-rock, new wave territory inspired by a view of the Adirondacks on 7th Lake, diving through the ocean and looking at the beauty of the underwater cities that has never been seen across the surface. The sound of a ghostly saxophone takes up this haunting call to reach back upwards and seeing the sun once more.
‘Latch’ puts you into a deep sleep, making you rest your head and take the night off until tomorrow to start a brand-new day. The dark, grey clouds come upwards before the massive thunderstorm starts to hit in a nanosecond with Morse code textures from the synths, sending out a signal to take cover and head for shelter before all hell breaks loose with the title-track.
When I think of ‘The Far Cry’ I feel as if I’m entering the worlds of Vangelis, David Bowie, and Brian Eno collaborating together in a parallel universe working on the Low and Heroes sessions and creating these ascending melodies throughout time and space with Edgar Froese and Robert Fripp handling the production work behind the recording techniques they were doing behind closed doors.
The result here is that Dark Sky Alliance have finally reached the mountain top and its probably going to be the perfect album for a meditated guide to clear your mind and think of the positive things that’s going around the world despite its tricky momentum that it’s in. Interdwell is a poetic sense of beauty that’s unveiling to us in all of its glory.
