Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Review from Vital Weekly

BOBAN RISTEVSKI & OCCUPIED HEAD - THE SECRET TEACHERS (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)


Once upon a long time ago, Boban Ristevski used to write for Vital Weekly and occasionally release some music (if memory serves me well), and then he stopped writing, but also his music wasn't heard again. Maybe his releases were more to be found in the online world? Occupied Head hails from Hamburg and on this long-distance collaboration, with Ristevski being in Skopje, they take a look at "mystical traditions 'coming from the ancient world' as diverse as 'the law of three', which plays an important role in Wicca, and 'the experience of Ba while awake', which takes its cue from the ancient Egyptian cult of the dead where Ba is the name given to the mobility of the soul after death"; similar stuff as the Tibetan Book of The Dead that inspired Pierre Henry and Eliane Radigue. Musically they might have taken a few leaves out of the books of Radigue and Henry, but there is a modern-day twist to their musique concrète. It might, of course, be their inspirational sources here, but (obviously, I'd say), the music is quite dark. It doesn't concern itself with all the dark drone matter that it could also have but expands on the drone horizon with 'other' sounds. Maybe these are field recordings, or a drum machine in 'The Experience Of Ba While Awake', which remind us of their love for rhythmic music; a touch of ambient, not very house. There is a chill-out character to the music anyway, with some spacious synths, water dripping, a sparse beat/sequence and such like, but it all stays neatly on the more experimental side of things. If you decide to ignore the track titles, then it is just a damn fine album of experimental ambient music, nouveau concrete and a touch of cosmic magic (without the 'k' at the end). (FdW)

––– Address: http://www.attenuationcircuit.de / https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/the-secret-teachers

http://www.vitalweekly.net/1270.html

No comments:

Post a Comment