Akoustik Timbre Frekuency - Evolution [New Year Rite]

Album: Evolution [New Year Rite]

Artist: Akoustik Timbre Frekuency

Label: Sombre Soniks

Catalogue no: ATF03

Tracklist:

     1.      Evolution [New Year Rite]

     2.      Evolution [Isolated New Year Rite]

As a species, humans like to mark significant events or to memorialise changes whether they be something as small as a birthday, the supposed birth/martyrdom of a religious figure, or when the seasons morph into the one following. In tune with this innate drive many societies over the millennia have formulated rituals and ceremonies designed to celebrate these events, both as a means of marking them and of bringing together people as an act of societal cohesion. Even these outpourings of devotion have evolved, certainly in the private sphere anyway, as these days it appears that individuals are wont to craft specific rites to reflect personal connections and beliefs. This recent release from Akoustik Timbre Frekuency is one such, although strictly speaking this is a reissue that was released as a CDr many years ago by Quartier23 as part of their ‘Ritual Musick Series’. Evolution [New Year Rite] was originally recorded on New Year’s Eve seventeen years ago as a ritual performance and is now re-released as a two-tracker – the original release and the isolated audio recordings of the performance.

From the very note of track one, mournful howls and whistles portray the last throes of the old year, the slowly fading ghost of the presiding spirit of the journey around the sun just gone, as well as a cacophonous sending off as if to drive away an unwanted lingering guest. It’s extremely visceral, shamanic, and in the moment, a necessarily chaotic and unstructured approach in response to the celebrant’s immediate surroundings and the prevailing atmosphere, as much of a description and narrative of the inward forces moving the participants as it is of the event/performance itself. It’s also almost as if the ritual has manifested every denizen of the hidden dimensions into material form, and then given them licence to create merry havoc for the brief tenure of their corporeality. It’s simultaneously joyful yet dangerous, uplifting yet hair-raising. There are moments, especially towards the end of the track, where shivers ran up and down my spine, with a tingling frisson always present throughout the entire running time.

In direct contrast to the dense layering of the preceding track, the following isolated instantiation is stripped back completely and is, in some respects, much more primeval and subterranean, relying even more heavily on atmospherics plus an uncluttered, therefore more direct, approach to primal connections. Just like the treated track, there are entities here but they’re much more obscure and preternatural, scratching and skittering, harking back perhaps to a dreamtime before the world became as it is now. Those reverberations echo down through time from that deep past to the now, carrying with them the same primitive appeal and the same pregnant meanings, of the possibilities and potentialities of the new. If the previous was the seeing out of the old year, then this surely is the welcoming of the new one, an exhortation to embrace those proffered possibilities and potentialities with open arms. One can almost feel the weight of aeons in every guttural utterance and unidentifiable scratch and click on here, a crushing weight that says nothing more than humans are perhaps neither the first ones here nor the prime intelligence governing the globe. There are others ever-present, obscured behind veils only the sensitive and enlightened are able to see and comprehend. They are watching us, and perhaps judging us.

It would be fair to posit that this album fulfils the two sides of man’s nature – the bestial and the search for betterment. In essence, New Year’s Eve is supposed to delineate a moment of change, of forward movement, a reminder to look in front of us and not behind, that if we don’t make the attempt to evolve the human state to something more refined then we’re doomed to repeat the same old mistakes that we’ve always made. On a personal level (and very curiously) I felt this album deeply, in spite of trying to remain neutral as a reviewer. I suppose there are just some things that worm their way in and take up residence, whether they were given an invitation or otherwise.

Available as a digital album from here:

https://sombresoniks.bandcamp.com/album/evolution-new-year-rite

Psymon Marshall - 2020.

Split Frequencies Vol. II - Akoustik Timbre Frekuency/Temple Music.

Album: Split Frequencies Vol. II

Artist: Akoustik Timbre Frekuency/Temple Music

Label: Sombre Soniks

Catalogue no: SomSon 145

Tracklist:

     1.      Akoustik Timbre Frekuency – Atu XV: Thee Devil (Tiphaereth to Hod)

     2.      Temple Music – Ships/Arc

This most recent release from the prolific Sombre Soniks label is the second in the new series of splits showcasing two acts per release (I reviewed the first volume, featuring Embers Below Zero/Grist, at the end of last year). Volume II features Priapus 23’s Akoustik Timbre Frekuency backed by Alan Trench’s Temple Music. Along the same lines to the first, it contains two long-form tracks, about a half hour in length, thematically and atmospherically linked, and which also serve as a kind of an appetiser to encourage further explorations of their individual outputs. And my advice is to just sit back, wrap some headphones around your head, and let your pleasure centres and every cell in your body absorb the frequencies until you become diffuse matter.

ATF’s ‘Atu X: Thee Devil (Tiphaereth to Hod)’ gets on with it straightaway, opening with deep drones and resonant vibrations, meant to connect perhaps with the part of our brains that bypass the consensus reality we’re all subject to and instead injects us into an alternate existence where everything is possible, and where all angles converge. Atu XV: Thee Devil refers, of course, to the fifteenth card of the tarot’s major arcana, a card which strikes fear into many – however, it doesn’t necessarily mean death as it can also mean change (as in death of the old to make way for the new). The subtitle Tiphaereth to Hod is a reference to the kabbalistic Tree of Life, Tiphaereth being the sixth sephira that represents Balance, Integration, and Compassion amongst other attributes. Hod is the eighth sephira, having the attributes of Majesty Glory, and Splendour. The journey being described here is a descending one, possibly going through Netzach, the seventh sphere of Endurance and Patience, a descent from balance into the very earthly attributes of majesty and glory. It’s quite possible, then, that this track is in essence a travelogue, a diary if you like of the aspirant’s/adherent’s metaphysical travels whilst descending the Tree of Life: certainly, as the track progresses the sounds become denser and more layered, as well more resonant and noisier. Looked at from that angle, it becomes clear that we are climbing back down the rungs of the ladder that is the Tree of Life, from a higher more tenuous sphere into one of greater density and more materiality.

‘Ships/Arc’ is a different beast altogether, coming on like an early 70s psychedelic freakbeat workout with twangy bass and organ before more sonorous keyboard drones take over alongside crackles and reverberant background punctuations. Compared to ATF’s opener this begins from an earthbound viewpoint and gently takes flight to catch the thermals and soar above the banalities of material existence. It is at once majestic and plaintive, looking below and reaching up simultaneously, a feeling of both attachment and a longing to be free of unnecessary constraints or the encumbrances of gravity. A strain of melancholic whistling weaves itself above, through, and below the main drones, like a bird dancing amongst the clouds, flitting and flirting with the warm draughts and currents of air. Above is a clear sky, unmarked by any imperfection but, just like here on earth, it is forever unreachable. And, just like birds in this existence, we are drawn back to where we lifted off from, letting gravity take hold once more, and bringing us back to banality. However, unlike the material body, hope and promises aren’t subject to the same forces we are, and they continue soaring into the sky and beyond, catching and floating on currents we can never hope to ride.

Here we have perfect mirrors – one tending towards darkness and earthiness, and the other skywards. One is a reflection of the other, images and feelings that couldn’t exist without their opposites. Perhaps these two tracks are about balance then, about the need for it in a universe rife with plurality – it is in fact a cosmological imperative. Given the current imbalance of earthly life, this could be a warning perhaps, a reminder that without thiss much-needed balance then we are bound to invite our doom. Even knowing our negative propensities as a species, perhaps someone somewhere will listen to this and see the light switch on and receive epiphany. This release contains those depths and nuances aplenty, and they are open to those who will lend an ear.

Available as a digital download from the link below:

https://sombresoniks.bandcamp.com/album/split-frequencies-vol-ii

Psymon Marshall - 2020.