This side project features Steve Von Till (Neurosis) on guitar and vocals; Kris Force (Amber Asylum) handling violin, vocals, and sound effects; and Mason Jones (Subarachnoid Space) on guitar, bass, synth, and vocals. In many cases the music consists of experimental ambient textures where the instruments used become hard to discern and less structured, but often the playing is very melodic and clear. All of the tracks are untitled, and they also basically all run together, so I'm not really sure why they didn't just make the disc one long song, as the divisions don't exactly separate obvious movements or sections of the songs all the time (though on occasion they do make sense). The composition(s) tend(s) to be slow moving and very spacious. There's not a lot of busy layering going on, and even during the busiest moments things remain relatively laidback and somewhat minimal. Vocals are generally used as another instrument to a large degree, appearing by just singing notes that fit the soothingly bleak atmosphere of the music. There are lyrics at times, but they can be hard to understand because of the drawn out nature of the singing, the vocal effects, and the placement of the vocals in the mix, as they usually mingle closely with the instrumentation. This material was initially improvised and recorded in one day back in 1997, with another session in 1998, and the final work being done on the material in 2001 (including the editing). It sounds pretty good, too. They experiment with the mix a lot as far as where the guitars and vocals are placed in relation to one another, and for being improvised they've done a good job of making it feel a bit more mapped out. I actually like the way the "instrumental vocals" work with the music better than actual singing of lyrics, especially when they start to swell in volume and become more active within the context of their surroundings. The layout is quite minimal, though fitting for the music, using some metallic gold ink on the front cover (the image looks like some kind of manuscript or something) along with the band logo and album title in black. The back cover has similar imagery along with a tracklist, and the back of the insert is in black and white with one abstract image and minimal text information. That's it. I wouldn't have minded a bit more visual or text information, but it gets the job done. To me this is another one of those "background music" CD's that isn't really something that drives me to want to listen intently, but works fairly well as something to throw on as you do something else because it's largely calm and almost relaxing in some bizarre way. Very nice.
[Neurot]
Running time - 43:27, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: all are untitled]
Neurot Recordings - http://www.neurotrecordings.com
