Doll - Greeting Death Under Blue Skies

 

Doll - Greeting Death Under Blue Skies- Cassette/Download – 2021 - 862-314-0518

https://862-314-0518.bandcamp.com/album/862-05-doll-greeting-death-under-blue-skies

https://xaylababydoll.bandcamp.com/music

I was extremely impressed by Doll’s Comfort Is Disease tape on Virtues Label recently: enough to want to delve further.

The unique atmospherics that I remember come through on Greeting Death Under Blue Skies, this combines field recordings and metal being hit which echoes over everything. I admire how it uses the disruption of silence as it’s main weapon. Synthesizer drones form Permanent Disposal of All Past Selves, smaller keyboard sounds play around this, the atmosphere is threatening compared to that of the previous track. This strengthens through the deeper drone thickening and the harmonies getting louder until everything fades.

The atmospherics of Crooked Fingers Always Find Their Way become increasingly disorientating the bigger they get. At this point the album is more synthesizers than field recordings and the gradual shift is impressive. I like the otherness of the sound; it really does go off elsewhere – suspenseful ambience and warped electronics play with each other in the bleakest manner possible. America Nocturnal follows similar ominous ambient paths – simple methods delivering rich results.

Things are brought down to lower volumes - To Be a Fool is subtle synth prods and some recorded footsteps/tapping, both form a tangible tension as they play each other off with added clanging. Threatening feedback rises as the synth continues to do the same for Dissolve One Tablet by Mouth Twice Daily. The feedback doubles and wails across the track, the synth keeps a rhythm throughout the movement of sounds. When the synth is allowed to resonate this sends sonic waves across the track. I would argue Doll toys with Death Industrial a lot in a subtle way – I find I am thinking wider experimental when listening but keep being reminded someone is having fun with the darkness at the same time. The end is The Way You Fuck the Moonlight: suspense, blurred boundaries and darkness are delivered. The twanging metallics deliver the lead, the dark atmosphere lurk in the background.

You know I am impressed by this work, one of the best I have heard all year because it thinks of a bigger picture and isn’t afraid to go into unchartered territory.

Coventry Soul 2021.