We cannot deny the ambition or the steady hand Óskar Arngrímsson brings to his music. Recording under the name Ótal his work feels more measured than most modular synth realizations. Blurring the borders between collage, sculpture, abstraction and tonal representation he searches for a hidden realm. Original, restlessly changing and charging sounds float free of context or lineage, with meaning pointing in multiple possible directions. While rising electronic forms enthrall in a slowly revealing timbral bloom oscillators take their turn advancing, stacking and receding. As enigmatic as the realm it is trying to depict Arngrímsson's realizations do not merely hang in the air, inert. They sparkle, shine and gleam - moving as easily out through the cosmos as it does inward to the recesses of the human spirit.
