By: Chad Murray
Memotone | website | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on March 18, 2016 via Black Acre
An ominous line of piano spiralling down into darkness and fluttering into dissonance; choked strings chime beneath the mix, the unpredictable percussion assaulting from all directions. ‘Across The Divide’ opens Chime Hours with assured dominance and undisputed excellence. The eerie pieces transmogrifies into a dark electronic pulse; trance beats thrash frantically whilst the synth lead palpitates furiously manifesting fever. The track bursts and melts into a surge of gloomy psytrance before brooding into its conclusion.
‘Your Eyes My Teeth’ introduces sinister vocals into the fray; several layers of acidic churns gurn out oral convulsions and sang mesmerisation. Each word entranced, each intonation hypnotised.
Dragged to a medieval world of piccolos and taverns then scraped back to dystopia; blast-beats and Death Grips-esque samples. Siren-like pads screeching violently at the forefront. The bells chime from the medieval world but, the track quickly warps into something else. Several layers of synths purr and pulse melodically as ‘Poison Arrow’ oscillates back and forth into a distorted calm. From bedrock the track erupts out back into a crescendo for the eastern sounding dark house electronica.
‘All Collapsed’ opens with a malevolent ambience utilising an imposing noise pulse reminiscent of The Body before surprisingly morphing into a strangely melodic electronic track. Multi-part harmonies in spacey vocals, the percussion rippling into hallucinogenic obscurity. Delays rupture the track in the distance whilst the vocals croon at front. The impending fury hinted at in the beginning comes screaming into the track with a fiery riff and then politely dissipates. The unusual track returns back into its delightful psychedelic pop core but, by this point it should evident that this album can go anyway, at any time.
Abrupt crackling and flickering intonations, ‘Hidden’ quivers the listener into anxious sedation. Crumple drums beat at its centre goading on whilst the foundation of the track builds to a crescendo. Soon the layers crawl away and all that’s left is an alienated drum beat.
A tranquillising opening pad cascades like a plume of smoke to open ‘She’s A Killer’. Steady rumblings and pulsations etch across until a solemn pad takes centre stage. Then the track becomes overwhelmingly, compellingly brilliant; several layers of disturbed vocals slither into a chorus like an occultist’s gregorian chant. Deep bass synths brood beneath the singing, almost roaring in the distance before it all fades away.
‘You Saw The Future’ opens with subways and broken cables, power surges and mechanical movement. Alleyways and boiler rooms, garages and junk shops. White noise floods the track as the piano makes an entrance and with that the album reaches a new zenith in sublime music making. Pianos twinkling in the dark, soft, fizzy percussion supports the track as ballast. Beautiful iridescent strings croon in between the shining piano melody. As the piece breaks down the electronica flutters in and the strings reach a hopeless clarity creating a hauntingly beautiful introspective conclusion for the track.
Easing in with some brain melting ambience, ‘Bird Eating Spider’ marks another bizarre shift in the album. Malevolent electronics and mangled robotics create an imposing dystopia of dark ambient oscillations and convulsing drones to build suspense. Some delightfully sinister strings cut through the arrangement like a swap of scissors flanked by pulsating drums and an exquisite synth drawl; the resulting effect is a dark instrumental industrial track in the same strides as Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson circa 1994.
Further down the rabbit hole, ‘Ritual’, menacingly churns distorted waves of synth and muffled percussion into a trance. The beat hastens and builds frantically to a crescendo before collapsing in on itself to awaken a new movement within the track. An industrial jungle of tribal drumming, palpitating ambient drones and melodic sparks of distortion thrash the track out to a close.
Back to medieval world in the final track, ‘Abbots Bromley Horn Dance’. The bells and pads begin in a fairy tale or a tale of olden times but, slowly becoming increasingly magical and atmospheric with ambient samples adding character. The magic turns to sorrow as the track draws to a close with whimpering strings, samples of heavy rain and crows, people muttering, it’s almost as if the track is being dragged back from a magical world to reality and for whatever reason, that makes the decisive stop all the more emotive.
Overall, this is a fascinating and diverse album that traverses unexpected terrain and shows skill in a wide variety of styles.
