Free Music Monday does exactly what it says on the tin. Every Monday I will scour BandCamp for only the best free albums.
Free Music.
Every Monday!
Got that? Good.
Let's begin.
I feel it’s vaguely lazy to compare the work of Russian Shoegaze/Ambient musician known only as “C. Horizon” to the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. I could easily be blamed for likening to two simply because they’re both from the same part of the world, but I’m going to do it anyway, but for good reason.
Listening
to this latest album from Desolate
Horizons, my first thought was of Tarkovsky’s Soviet era film STALKER (yes the one the game was based
off of.) STALKER is a snapshot of an empty, pointless world that yields not but
fear and uncertainty to those foolish enough to probe into its barren corners
in search of an ill-defined “more”. We’ll
Never Fade Away has that same feeling. It is an album brimming with both
hope and emptiness, light and airy float through grandiose melodies that are
brimming with sadness. It is the sun rising gloriously over a dead world. The
song titles don’t help the sad mood, with tracks such as we loved each other long before we met... when we were just a lonely
dreamers and as long as there's a
light in the sky, i'll be waiting for you; it is an album packed to the
brim with as much quality as feels.
Bleak Russian Dark Ambient isn’t the only highly atmospheric free release we’ve come across this week. Chronical is a Cinematic Post-Rock release from Swedish One Man Project Lights and Motion. If We’ll Never Fade Away is the soundtrack to a movie released decades too late, Chronical is the optimistic soundtrack to what you hope your future will be and the sepia-toned score to the life you’ve already lived simultaneously.
Why stop at two? Why not make this article a trifecta of mildly pretentious instrumental music? Migration Lights is the 2015 release from the Italian Post-Metal outfit threestepstotheocean (one word, lower case; that’s probably important.)
Migration Lights is a brash yet introspective affair
channelling Post-Metal releases from bands like Isis and Neurosis and
mixing it with the sludgy dragging qualities of Metallic Hardcore and the more ethereal
qualities of Post-Rock. Sneeringly introspective Migration Lights isn’t trying to relax you, but that doesn’t
prevent it from reaching for echoy guitars and breathy synths and drones to
couple with the crushing distorted guitar tones. Instead threestepstotheocean focus on the negative aspects on life, hate,
loss, aggression, depression, all conveyed without a word.
As with the other two
albums featured here, Migration Lights is
an incredibly powerful experience. Where as We’ll
Never Fade Away is existential thought on the futility of being and Chronical is an emotional scrapbook, Migration Light is a punch to the gut
and a swift knee to the face, coupled with the realisation that this is real
life and that it’s a difficult place to be. As the album art implies, it’s an
exploration of a world turned on its head. A grit filled, aggressive rollercoaster
of brutality and contrasting fragility. If the artsy-ness of the previous two
albums turned you away, you can get all your emotional pretence with your
brutal credibility intact with threestepstotheocean
and Migration Lights.
Free Music.
Every Monday!
Got that? Good.
Let's begin.
Desolate Horizons - We'll Never Fade Away
I feel it’s vaguely lazy to compare the work of Russian Shoegaze/Ambient musician known only as “C. Horizon” to the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. I could easily be blamed for likening to two simply because they’re both from the same part of the world, but I’m going to do it anyway, but for good reason.
Listening
to this latest album from Desolate
Horizons, my first thought was of Tarkovsky’s Soviet era film STALKER (yes the one the game was based
off of.) STALKER is a snapshot of an empty, pointless world that yields not but
fear and uncertainty to those foolish enough to probe into its barren corners
in search of an ill-defined “more”. We’ll
Never Fade Away has that same feeling. It is an album brimming with both
hope and emptiness, light and airy float through grandiose melodies that are
brimming with sadness. It is the sun rising gloriously over a dead world. The
song titles don’t help the sad mood, with tracks such as we loved each other long before we met... when we were just a lonely
dreamers and as long as there's a
light in the sky, i'll be waiting for you; it is an album packed to the
brim with as much quality as feels.
I can
imagine this acting as a perfect score to Tarkovsky’s STALKER possible an even better one than the unofficial soundtrack
written by Lustmord and Robert Rich. If beautiful melodramatic depression in the form of ambient music sounds like your thing, then you’ll feel
right at home here, for what it’s worth.
Lights & Motion - Chronicle
Bleak Russian Dark Ambient isn’t the only highly atmospheric free release we’ve come across this week. Chronical is a Cinematic Post-Rock release from Swedish One Man Project Lights and Motion. If We’ll Never Fade Away is the soundtrack to a movie released decades too late, Chronical is the optimistic soundtrack to what you hope your future will be and the sepia-toned score to the life you’ve already lived simultaneously.
Chronical is an organic merger of crescendo
driven Post-Rock ala Explosions In The
Sky and ethereal dream pop worshipping at the churches of M83 and Coldplay; even at times seeming to channel Neo-Classical composers
such as Craig Armstrong. While you’re
not going to find the complexities found in Post-Rock’s best works (such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor) you do
find an immensely beautiful album that gives you as much as you give it. This
is an album to sit in the dark drinking a glass of scotch with whilst reminiscing
over the good ole’ days. The emotion and drama found in Lights and Motion’s output proved tenfold by the Swedish Solo
artists recent breakthrough into film scores, with works gracing trailers for Homefront, Transcendence, Lone Survivor and
even being used by Google for a
commercial.
Guitars shimmer darkly, a Violin murmurs distantly and a Piano twinkles beneath a sky lit only by stars. Tomorrow is another day and you wish you could take everything you have forward with you.
But you can't.
Revel in it.
Guitars shimmer darkly, a Violin murmurs distantly and a Piano twinkles beneath a sky lit only by stars. Tomorrow is another day and you wish you could take everything you have forward with you.
But you can't.
Revel in it.
treestepstotheocean - Migration Light
Why stop at two? Why not make this article a trifecta of mildly pretentious instrumental music? Migration Lights is the 2015 release from the Italian Post-Metal outfit threestepstotheocean (one word, lower case; that’s probably important.)
Migration Lights is a brash yet introspective affair
channelling Post-Metal releases from bands like Isis and Neurosis and
mixing it with the sludgy dragging qualities of Metallic Hardcore and the more ethereal
qualities of Post-Rock. Sneeringly introspective Migration Lights isn’t trying to relax you, but that doesn’t
prevent it from reaching for echoy guitars and breathy synths and drones to
couple with the crushing distorted guitar tones. Instead threestepstotheocean focus on the negative aspects on life, hate,
loss, aggression, depression, all conveyed without a word.
Interested in having your band featured on this weekly article? E-mail us at pyramidnoise@gmail.com with the subject line "Free Music Monday" with links to your Bandcamp page.
