All That We See or Seem

All That We See or Seem

It’s been some time since I’ve checked in with my favourite label run and operated by Erik K. Skodvin out of Berlin. If you haven’t kept up with Miasmah this year, be sure to catch up with new music from James Welburn, Matt Christensen, and Mondkopf, plus a beautifully remastered repress of Deaf Center‘s Neon City [this is a must if you haven’t heard it!] and, of course, a 25-minute recording by Skodvin himself as Svarte Greiner, which I covered back in May: Devolving Trust. But today I’m listening to a mesmerizing project spanning Finland, England and Brazil, who call themselves All That We See or Seem, with the self-titled two-track LP, available on a limited edition vinyl as of October 21st, 2022. The long-playing occult drone elegies on the record pay homage to a quote from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe: “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” For nearly 30 minutes a piece, the group manages to keep you on the edge of your seat with their ritualistic sounds originating deep within our primordial minds. At times I feel like I am sitting by the fire in the dark wilderness, entranced in the unfolding ceremony of supernatural shamans, ready to spring into their sacred dance. There is a moment on this record that truly pops me out of this reality and further on it drops me back. You’ll know it when you hear it. No spoilers here. “It is a trance-inducing composition that slowly unfolds elements of pagan ancestry into its own life […] It is an astounding piece of music that develops like a drone symphony for the beginning of time.” The record may not soothe the light-hearted, but if you’re ready to be transformed from this realm to the next, I recommend that you play All That We See or Seem a little louder… preferably in the dark. Fans of everything Miasmah will feel right at home!

Arovane & Taylor Deupree

Skal_Ghost

So just in case if you haven’t noticed, this column is called ⟪ REW | FF ⟫. Besides my self-congratulating clever nod to the early cassette era, the point of covering music here is to catch up to albums I’ve missed in the past, visit with music released in the present, and give you a teaser of things yet to come. Makes sense? In the case of the latter, I’d like to whet your appetite with the upcoming collaboration between two of the music scene’s minimal giants, whom, perhaps finally this time around, I won’t spend the time introducing. You know who they are. And in the case of Skal_Ghost, there are no obvious surprises [I mean that in a good way] – it’s literally a union between two beautiful minds – it’s Arovane and Taylor Deupree! You would have thought that these two have collaborated in the past, but no, this is the first time! Besides the immensely organic sound explored throughout the ten tracks on the album, the duo used a single synthesizer to drive their inspiration. Exchanging ideas and patches created for the Nonlinear Labs‘ C15 Synthesizer, Taylor and Uwe played with the unique characteristics of sound design, sonic manipulation, and improvisation with loops and many textured layers. On Skal_Ghost, synthetic and natural blend into a rich palate of tasty delights. “Arovane’s dense textural beds of tone and harmony lay the foundation for the more broken and fragile melodics of Deupree’s organic loops.” This one is scheduled to be released on November 4th, 2022, via Taylor’s celebrated 12k imprint. But if you simply can’t wait, perhaps Deupree’s collaboration with Marcus Fischer called Februarys (now out on Dauw) or Arovane’s most recently remastered Tides will keep you at bay. Oh, and both of them also appear on Headphone Commute’s For Ukraine compilation, the third volume of which was curated by Rafael Anton Irisarri. I’m biased, but I think that one’s a must!