Blackcloudsummoner - Four Breaths

Blackcloudsummoner – Four Breaths – Download/CDr – 2020

https://blackcloudsummoner.bandcamp.com/

1. Ultraheaven Crawling Fortress.
2.  Indoor Nebula.
3. You, Me + the Rocks.
4. Old Painless.

Blackcloudsummoner is one of those obscure projects that I hit upon a while back, a friend mentioned the project in passing so I enquired and found out more and bought some releases. The work grabbed me immediately which led to me buying more and more albums. Live, there has been tours with Nacht und Nebel and Luxury Mollusc as well as many other performances around the UK. Part of the beauty of Blackcloudsummoner is its obscurity, this project is always somewhere in the background occurring and developing, it isn’t in any cliques, it isn’t shamelessly pushed around on the web, it just exists and finds you – that’s how I feel in regards to my discovery of this work.

The sound is unique, it has a certain quietness to it, there is real variance in the tracks as there is continual, varied, odd experimentation occurring throughout the release. There are some strong combinations with guitar noise (Steve Larder) with the drones which really builds up and resonated strongly. The gentler noise sounds are beautiful, and they too build up and really throb the speakers on occasions as if sparkling and glowing in the bright light.

In contrast, hostility does exist within parts of the sound, it isn’t all sparkling light. You, Me + the Rock is a key example of this, digital frequency abuse pulsates at me. The slightest rise in sound or break from the quiet spaciousness raises the intensity and can easily shift the mood of the work.There are crackles pops and antagonistic drones that resonate darkness – the dark/light contrast that exists in the sound is constant. 

Pulling back to the experimentation, I cannot work out how the tracks on Four Breaths tie together, there is so much going on as if a lot of work was carefully worked through and eventually selected. This is all strong work and its quirkiness is impressive. It does tie in together, I just cannot explain how, but I can’t explain a lot about this project and that is what has kept me coming back. This is a strong release.

Nevis Kretini 2020.