Ginnungagap "Return to Nothing" CD
[Misanthropic Agenda]
Named after the chasm in Norse mythology that resides between Nifelheim and Muspelheim, Ginnungagap ("seeming emptiness") apparently acts as an umbrella name for Stephen O'Malley's collaborative projects - here featuring O'Malley on guitar, Misanthropic Agenda's own Gerritt Wittmer working with a computer, and T. Wyskida handling gong and tympani. Opener "Return to Nothing" was recorded live at the Flux Factory in Queens, NY on March 10, 2004. Things open with sparse string scraping and plucking sounds with faintly resonant percussion, all fairly quiet and spacious, with some subtle melody and droning qualities filling in the gaps with some very faint electronic sounds and clicks. This continues in more or less the same fashion for nearly 30 minutes, with percussive textures taking a significant back seat and some of the guitars becoming a bit more strummed and tangible as the volume level increases a bit (distortion never plays too intense a role). Towards the end things drop out a little as the guitar notes start sliding around with added noisier accompaniments. As a whole the piece is fairly ambient in nature, though something about its character makes it fall outside of those boundaries as well. The 20-minute "Nothing to Return" follows, which is a Gerritt remix of the live set. It starts off right away with what sounds like pitch-shifted or slowed down samples of some of the percussive hits and string scrapings, made to sound a bit darker in this deeper context. This carries along similarly to the live set, focusing on the guitar sounds, drones, and background shufflings, while dropping out most of the percussive elements. The difference is that here things are a bit more manipulated to reverberate and come off a little colder and more sinister in delivery. 10 minutes into the track everything starts getting churned out through lots of effects, jacking up the watery reverb and twisting/morphing distorted textures across the foreground. Surprisingly the composition then reverts to basically the same ending sequence as the live set, tweaked here and there, but even closing with the same audience applause and everything. The CD comes in a beautiful oversized sleeve printed on matte cream paper with metallic gold ink over flat gold ink for layering effects; with one faint band photo, crisp/tiny text, and some images of hummingbirds. Inside the sleeve there's also a small number printed, so I assume each copy of the release is numbered. Simple, but very elegant. I'm not sure what the visual element of the actual live performance might have entailed, but it's probably safe to assume that witnessing this performance in the live setting would have been a bit more interesting than the recording herein - though admittedly its 28 minutes pass quite quickly considering, and there are definitely some hypnotic moments involved. I like that the remix is also quite in line with the live set, making for a cohesive release that flows well rather than feeling like two disconnected pieces related only by lineage. Not too shabby. Limited to 500 copies this is no doubt to go out of print at some point, so those intrigued should act sooner than later. (7/10)
Running time - 48:13, Tracks: 2
[Notable tracks: both are well done and truly consistent with one another]
Misanthropic Agenda - http://www.misanthropicagenda.com

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