Рецензия от Electronic Music Critic на альбом «Reflections Under The Sky»

Many of these Cryo Chamber CDs I’m reviewing were procured thanks to the label’s spiffy bulk deals, but not this one. With Reflections Under The Sky, I snatched that up the moment it was announced, getting my hardcopy right off the factory line. Was it because I was a die-hard fan of one SiJ or Textere Oris? Had I been so completely won over by Cryo Chamber’s dark oeuvre that I simply had to shell out for every new release? Ah, not quite the case.

Way back when I started the splurge, a couple of items that interested me were already sold out: Ugasanie’s Call Of The North, and Sabled Sun’s Signals IV-V-VI. With everything under Simon Heath’s sci-fi saga deemed ‘must hear’ for yours truly, I was gutted that I’d be left without a hardcopy of the continuing Signals series. It also got me thinking that, as with most labels now, their CDs were still a limited run offer, and that I shouldn’t dwell on anything Cryo Chamber puts out if it looks promising. And besides, even if it doesn’t turn out all that I’d hoped for, they’d at least become quick collector’s items like so many Ultimae or Silent Season CDs, right? Well, maybe not.

So my impetus in getting Reflections Under The Sky had a smidge of Collector Investment impurity to it. Once I actually played the CD though, I realized I could never part with it, this album such a swirl of dubby sounds and reflective sentiments, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t something from Silent Season instead. Still, Cryo Chamber’s generated their share of moody melancholic material before, with SiJ and Textere Oris sparing no expense in presenting a unique brand of picturesque societal decay. There’s plenty of droning ambient, but it’s not always as bleak as the dark proponents go. Its equal parts calm and soothing, as though we’re being gently laid to rest for an eternal slumber. And through it all are ample minimalist field recordings that Andrew Heath would swoon over: falling rain, chirping birds, insects, creaking buildings, wind chimes, and… a tea kettle reaching boiling?

Apparently this is the sort of music SiJ (Vladislav Sikach to the Ukrainian Musician’s Guild) dabbles in, making use of any and all instruments at his disposal. This includes guitars, drums, toy pianos, and even homemade machines, much of which was used to explore noisier abstractions and experiments. He’s definitely had plenty opportunity, some forty LPs released across several netlabels this past half decade. Lord Discogs has less info on Textere Oris, one Ilya Fursov of Moscow, but he provides additional field recordings, synths, and the final mixdown. Aw, Simon Heath left out in the cold on this one.

Yeah, that’s what it feels like listening to Reflections Under The Sky: wrapped up in a parka while surveying an old European winter village, just barely hanging on as a testament to civilizations past. It’s at once lovely and immersive, yet a chilling reminder that nothing lasts.


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