Album: AuGrist
Artist: Grist
Label: Sombre Soniks
Catalogue no: SomSon137
Tracklist:
1. The
Augurist
2. I
Dreamed of Frogs and Gravel
3. The
Three Remains
One thing I’ve learned is
that P23’s Sombre Soniks label has a habit of releasing offbeat and intriguing
music, usually of a deeply occult, mystical, and shamanic nature. This latest
example, a three-track album from Australian project Grist is no exception, and
furthermore it only underscores my belief that Sombre Soniks is something of an
underrated entity. So far I’ve been impressed by the sheer variety and quality
of their output, and this album definitely ticks all the right boxes if you’re
looking for some shamanic/ritual ambient/noise, or even just some unconstrained
experimentation.
Grist’s philosophy, especially
on this example, is quite simple and straightforward: creation through an
absence of intent and direction – in other words, let’s just press play and see
what happens. The music is allowed to initiate its own conversations and to
choose its own themes, with the musician being the interlocutor and
interpreter. Ideas, concepts, and perceptions are picked up and discarded, or
flow over and through each other, adding subtle hues and colours available to
the artist’s palette with which to paint the ever-unfolding vistas.
Skirling pipes wail a mind-cleansing
welcome on ‘The Augurist’, a swirling, whirling maelstrom of howling, keening
currents that seek to pick you up and carry you off to the stratospheric
heights. Once up above the clouds, those currents are joined by
counter-currents interweaving between, over, under, and through the main
stream, emphasising, underlining, counterpointing, accentuating, and
supporting. The view from up here is spectacular: the whole panoply of creation
is laid out beneath you, an almost endless sea of greens, browns, and stone
greys. If nothing else, the flight amongst the wispy clouds reminds you that
creation is profound and fecund, and that we are but an insignificant part of
that neverending process.
‘I Dreamed of Frogs and
Gravel’ gallops in on a hypnotic tribal rhythm, and riding upon its back is a
brightly ringing, shimmering bell-like loop, hooking you in instantly and
towing you along with it on a psychedelic fantasy of new shapes, colours, and
landscapes, continually metamorphosing in an unbridled act of creation and
evolution. The one emotion which this track provoked was joy; here is the
definition of an overflowing of potentialities and possibilities, each
iteration rushing into existence before it, too, is subsumed by a further
outgrowth. These are thoughts made manifest, moulded by imagination alone. But,
like all things subject to the rules of evolution, it too changes, assuming moods
according to its own philosophy and needs. There are times of explosive metamorphoses
followed by times of quiescence and inactivity. However, when it quietens down
it doesn’t mean that the process has ceased: just because a bear hibernates it
doesn’t mean that it’s died – it’s merely waiting for the right moment to
reawaken. This, I imagine, is what it feels to be creator, godhead, and deity.
‘The Three Remains’ is a
completely different beast, opening with a deadly mechanical contraption
emitting gouts of flame and carcinogenesis. Poisonous exhalations of industrial
rasping, growling and grunting, spouting sparks and molten metal with a grim,
dirty iron foundry aesthetic, a claustrophobic manufactory suffocating in black
smoke. This is nothing less than a limitless nightmare of circular saws,
flamethrowers, and sandblasters, flensing skin in an orgy of destruction and
annihilation. It’s a raw exposition of extinction and extermination, a hymnal
to unchecked chaos and anarchy. It feels unhealthy, diseased, and tainted, a
carrion-bearer of plague and infestation. Then, like the previous track, it
changes: even in the midst of devastation and ruin, life persists. Tiny things
scratch and scramble against a gentle breath providing its own rhythm, a
reminder that a way will always be found to re-emerge. And once it gains a
foothold then its presence increases until it becomes a new tide, washing away
the filth of the old and failed.
What can I say? What we
have here is a suite of mood pieces, ranging from the exhilarating to the
devastating. Like I noted above, the tracks were allowed to progress in their
own way, permitted to unfold as they were wont to do, organically and
naturally. Music speaks, but it does so depending on the intentions of the
artist or, in this case, of the music itself. This is proof that music has a
will and life of its own, and that it sometimes refuses to be constrained, or
follow the rules. Judging by the results issued here, Grist understands what
his music wants to tell him, and he trusts it enough to let it speak through
its own voice. For me, this is another winner from Sombre Soniks.
Available as a download
from here:
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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