It is raining. I drag myself out of bed onto the wet pavement for a daily crawl to work. The raindrops typewrite poems on my umbrella. Time to put on Yagya. After a certain point, I can’t tell if the sound of the rain is coming from outside, or strictly from my headphones. And does it matter anyway? The subdued dubbed out bass patterns and swelling pad sweeps shove me towards the lazy train against my will. And I trot on, splashing in the water with the beat. On the train, the sleepy commuters fog up the windows with their indifferent morning breath. I wipe away their misery from the glass and stare at the rotation of the city life outside. The bus picks up its passengers. The lights change from yellow to red. People follow predetermined rules. People don’t look at each other. Yagya carries the humanity forward. One beat at a time. Yagya carries me to work.
Rigning is the long awaited third full length album from Icelandic producer, Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson. This is the second Yagya release on the Dutch label, Sending Orbs, which has released Guðmundsson’s Will I Dream During the Process? in 2006. Sending Orbs is also a label which brought us such amazing artists like Kettel, Secede, Blamstrain and Legiac. So I always keep my eyes on their releases.
Rigning, which, of course is “rain” in Icelandic, is one of the most beautiful ambient dub-techno compositions to date. But lets not put the emphasis on “techno”, since the background pulsing beat exists purely as the rhythmic glue around the wet structure. From beginning to end, the album is a complete conceptual piece wrapped around variations on the main theme, from simplistic track titles (counting up from one to ten) to careful selection of atmospheric elements, to delayed dub minor chords in maintained perfect harmony. It is an album you must hear in its entirety. Over and over.
This is an amazing start for great music in 2009, and I’m looking forward to the year if it will bring more sounds like this. After a three year wait, Yagya does not disappoint! Be sure to add this record to your collection along with Yagya’s very first release, Rhythm of Snow (Force Inc., 2002), if you can find it. Highly recommended if you like Gas, Biosphere, Intrusion, Echospace and Basic Channel sound.
