Mon0

Sublime Porte.  (Label) says:

This release by mon0 is the artist's fourth album, the first one on Sublime Porte, after an ep on Silent Season and several releases on Kreislauf and Test Tube. An expert in long tracks, mon0 here provides us with six beautiful journeys into sound all lasting around ten minutes.

The opener, the soothing Monolog, is a great moodsetter for what follows, and shows just how accurate the sensation of space is in this album : with calm rhythms and a simple pad flowing from highs to lows, an almost solid mass of sound encompassing deep Detroit slabs and white noise, seagulls on the coast and the sound of the wind across the sea, it dives deep and takes us on the ride.

Seaside is a fantastic drone cut, complete with electronic rain and steel drums being overtaken by demonic forces. It's almost as if we hear an ancient sea god rattling on metal sheets and a thousand undead echo chambers chanting in unison a strange prayer in an unknown language. The fog then proceeds to slowly move away, and as we stray forward we uncover the shapes under a closer light.

As we wander inland, Autumn Clouds start to gather over our heads, a chilly wind sets in, passing through the trees and chiming in with the bells of a distant temple. Deep in the forest more rain starts pouring down... Guided by strange lights, we arrive near the village of a native civilization, and their drums start blending with the faraway sound of the bells.

Starting off slowly, Gray Skies is a more straightforward dub techno affair, but which manages to retain the same level of ambience as its predecessors. The track rests upon layers and layers of pads, with slow attack chords and very original percussions to boot, it takes its time to build a consistent atmosphere before entering into motion. Dialog continues on that note, with a noticeably darker atmosphere, and is definitely the more club-oriented of the bunch, but still has that keen sense of mood before functionnality, and it's a true delight to hear.

Outro is the bleakest track yet : featuring a chilly drone as a center piece, and sounds akin to wind in winter, it evokes images of infinite lunar landscapes, grey and white mountains of dust slowly eroding, bursts of solar flares and the vast emptiness of space, with the blinding light of stars and planets pinned against the unfathomable black void of the universe. And you in the middle, wandering helplessly through infinity.