Hello again fine HearFeelers, I know it’s been some time since my last post and I sincerely apologise for that; sadly University exams take precedent over music reviews! I’ve got this relatively short EP to write up today from the very nice Jose Acuña, aka EUS, and I’m planning on getting up to speed on all things 2013 next week, so with that out the way, here is Erget.
It is a painfully beautiful day today, the kind of day that you wish you didnt have an exam on (or anything that remotely constitutes hard work at all really) and that means that listening to Erget on a day like this, where the Sun is beaming, the sky is clear and you have to lazily fend off bees, is in some ways…unnatural. That’s because Erget is dark; not oppressive, that would be too far and almost insulting to the music, but heavy and introspective. It feels more like the kind of album you need to experience with headphones on at times, lying in bed, but here I am turning up the bass and just letting it talk through the speakers, and it’s doing an impressive job.
Track 1 (they are untitled) takes its time to get established, cruising neutrally in low gear as it spins out some oscillating, writing, yet somehow low-key, electronica to introduce the EP before doing a Murcof on us and opening the floodgates with this huge pulse of processed guitar that really gets you out of your seat with a jolt. But this wake up call doesnt last for long; it sustains a louder, more dynamic environment for the rest of the track, certainly, but it doesnt really do a great deal of evolution which is a shame. Still, it has an interesting feel to it, spanning the feel somewhere between comfort and discomfort as it marries more discordant whines against more laid back drone.
As 1 slips away, 2 fades in utterly seamlessly, the transition undetectable. The entire EP is essentially one track in three acts and each act slowly slips into the rabbit hole slightly further than the last. At first 2 is still as bold and as outgoing as the latter part of 1, once again reverting to that original cruise mode as it coasts on its multifaceted drones, occasionally switching it up here and there as new notes make their way through the fog. Almost human chants can be heard through the ever shifting textures, these almost tribal sounds coming out of the woodwork but almost buried by the music. The transition into the final track is perhaps not quite as subtle as the first into the second as the change is much more immediate and the mood changes for the darker straight away. It is also by far the best track of the album, and sadly the previous two tracks just dont really hold a torch to it; it’s not that they are bad but I dont really feel emotionally attached to them and I just dont feel the same sense of grandeur coming off them.
As 3 introduces itself with some heavy bass pulses it begins to remind me more and more of some of the work Carbon Based Lifeforms did; admittedly this isnt exactly Psybient but some of those skittering creaks and glitches and the whole angle of approach the synths has is eerily similar. But the music is so much bolder, grander, and more effortless than anything CBL have done. The drones are vast, unending walls of spine-tingling noise, a fall captured in slow-motion rising carefully and rising dangerously to a climax. When you think it cant go on any longer somehow it finds more to give, eaking out more and more and prolonging the inevitable by carefully fading the drone in and out of the fore, oscillating the volume to maximise its impact. It’s a vast track, one that is giving me goosebumps despite the warm weather and one that I desperately want to hear in a cooler, darker setting alone and with headphones rather than sitting sipping a glass of strawberry wine. It’s a difficult track to describe for me; it’s almost like the tension you feel watching something happen from afar, that feeling like you’re on the edge of your seat just waiting for something to unfold but nothing ever does. The moment is diffused and passes, the music slinks away and the anxiety is lost to the gentle plinks of a piano to serenade us out.
A lot of words for a 3 track, barely 20 minute EP, and yet I still think I could have said more with that space. I suppose I’m a little bit rusty at this writing business (at least, music reviews as opposed to exams, which I have had enough practice on for one year); Erget is a fine diversion though, and I’m pleased to have heard it. “Erget III” is definitely one of the better tracks of this year with its 9 minutes of intoxicating drone, I love it. Certainly one to check out, and if you would like to do so here is his Bandcamp (where you can listen for free!)