| Artist: Farthest South Album: Spheres & Constellations Released: 13 December 2013 |   |
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Those listening to Spheres & Constellations and waiting for something to happen are missing the point of this work. The trio of Barry Berko on electric guitar, Yair Yona on bass and effects and Yair Etziony on electronics work together as Farthest South, and do not design music to entertain the bored and passive. With no clear organizational principles they thrive on imperfection, making the performer urgently alive and undermine the authority of the musician through collaboration and listener participation. How much more glorious this music is that it arises from such chaos. Seemingly lost, wandering from one chord to another Spheres & Constellations is brash, improvisational, and full of seething color and attitude. What is most striking about Spheres & Constellations is how differently time passes in this corner of Ambient Music where so few choose to go. A drone constructed from growling guitars and sustaining synth tones fills the soundfield with an ominous expanding atmosphere. Vague transmitted voices become buried in the mix, struggling against dramatic intermittent grinding guitar and spacey modulated effects. Farthest South thoroughly explores this one direction with an insistent force that keeps us moving along with them. They go deep without ever abandoning the surface. Spheres & Constellations has the feel of something by the Cosmic Jokers or a dark and stormy early period Pink Floyd jam. While more primitive in execution this haunting exploration manages to realize the ultimate hymn to elsewhere. In this beautifully textured piece it is the mechanics inside our heads that truly matters.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 23 January 2014 | |
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