Reviews
Another deep dive into the realms of sound impermanence.
This second collaboration between Ian Hawgood, Porya Hatami and David Newman is another 35 minute deep dive into the realms of sound impermanence. On 2020's first volume, a single track, entitled Iuxta Mare [deletion 5] (which translates as "By the Sea") used field recordings and electronic instrumentation to simultaneously depict the ebb and flow of a calm sea while commenting on the inevitable frailty of human endeavour.
[Iuxta Mare] chronicles the impact of beautiful moments in time and documents how they change, disintegrate and fade. Each ‘deletion’ references the interplay between physical reality and subjective experience. Our bodies hold memories and experience the impact of changes and loss
Monogoto
Moving inland, volume two explores similar concepts, this time with themes of life and growth (Komorebi means "sunlight filtering through trees") predominating. The music flutters and fades with each artist contribution creating a soothing, flowing harmony. Shapes emerge in the music and then dissipate, with each flow quietly mirroring our own impact on Earth and our associated, fading memories. Seedling (deletion 14) embodies this idea with cooing textures, rising tension and, eventually, serene collapse. Nature can be beautiful and ugly and then forgotten. What we remember may only be the good things but eventually we will forget them too. So while the subtle details in the music fail to linger in the mind for long, the album as a whole is not unmemorable.
Strange welling tonal crisper of new sounds, a suite of tracks exploring the impermanent sound objects and their evolution across time and into silence, from ambient artists Ian Hawgood, Porya Hatami and David Newman. With this new album, the collaborators continue a series of works based on the concept of creation, change, deletion, and loss. Each piece brings natural, electronic and orchestral sounds into focus and then eventual dispersal. I hear a lovely sustained fluttering instrumental lingering as the elements of melody flicker and cavort slowly. Each piece brings natural, electronic and orchestral sounds into focus and then dispersal. Each deletion references the interplay of existence between the physical reality and the subjective. Our bodies hold our memories and experience the impact of birth, change and loss. That keeps it interesting, this is about us. Each of us. All alone.
Each deletion references the interplay of existence between the physical reality and the subjective. It passes time and holds a mirror up to the experience of that time passing. I accept this bold notion because I think, based on the concept of creation, change, deletion, and loss, that the music traverses the sad and the uplifting, the experimental and orthodox in such a way as to bring a pleasing perplexity to the ear. The music, as I hear, bends like the light through leaves or debris in the waxing ocean. It passes time and holds that mirror up to the experience of that time passing. All very delicate and fascinating, little sounds held in wispy vapors, waiting to be heard.
I am enjoying this, a suite of tracks exploring the impermanent sound objects and their evolution across time and into silence, bringing glitchy, ambient, microsound, experimental, avant-garde, modern classical, creation decay. I hear this and pause. Backwards sounding melodic things, “Komorebi (deletion 47)” (4:46) brings a ringing reverb, gentle long thin metal sounds, as I see it, cloud-based means different things. Stringed instruments and electronica, the three artists are always finding the natural sounds of musical instruments and presenting them in new ways. Gentle and low, subtle activity. “Seedling (deletion 14)” (13:01) has a shake shake throbbing persistence which eases. The sound is at times a thin layer, like a membrane. “Lamella (deletion 78)” (10:16) is a cosmic unfolding, increasing and holding, riding the light beams. Very restful and loaded with interesting details. Things keep changing while keeping the original direction. “In Situ – Upper Air (deletion 19)” (7:45) has me gliding in place, gates squeak, notes glitch and glitter, hidden in the shivering wind.
This is a good ride. Partial Deletion of Everything (Vol. 2) follows up from the initial release of Volume 1 released on 12k in the month of November 2020. Volume 2 brings a suite of tracks exploring all across time and into silence.
Address: https://igloomag.com/reviews/monogoto-partial-deletion-of-everything-v2-polar-seas
Here we have a trio of musicians, who, so at least assume, don't meet up in person, but exchange sound files. Ian Hawgood, Porya Hatami and David Newman create music that are based on the concept of creation, deletion, and loss. The first volume was released in November 2020, a longer digital only track on 12K. "Each piece brings natural, electronic and orchestral sounds into focus and then dispersal. Each deletion references the interplay of existence between the physical reality and the subjective", which I am all not too sure how that translates in a practical sense to the music. Are they actual deletions taking place? Is there is a lot of sound material at the start and they scrape away the unwanted sounds? Hard to say. So, while we are in the dark as to how this music was created, the results are beautiful. Sure, dark it is, an element of decay doesn't seem to be far away, and, perhaps, with loss as the result. Four pieces, in total thirty-six minutes of music, in which each player brings to the table what they do best. Think computer-based processing of field recordings in combination with 'real' instruments and recordings picked up in various ambiences. There's a drone element running through all these pieces, a bit of hiss is never far away (I guess to indicate the decay part of the process). A bit of an oddball is the opening of Seedling, with its skipping Oval-esque sound, of something mechanical that got stuck somewhere. Here to it gradually fades away, as much of the music is about using long fades to arrive in a different place. Mind you, not 'fade out', which one could, perhaps, think when reading the word 'deletion'. The music is not about a vanishing act, i think. Music that one can play on slow cold days, inside the house, warm and cosy, and outside the clouds pass majestically along a slowly darkening afternoon. Oddly, a romantic notion. (FdW)
––– Address: https://polarseasrecordings.bandcamp.com/
Derrière Monogoto, se tient un trio de producteurs issu de la scène ambient, que l’on ne présente plus: Ian Hawgood, Porya Hatami et David Newman (fondateur du merveilleux label Audiobulb).
Après un premier volume sorti en 2020 sur le label 12K, Monogoto convoque une nouvelle fois les particularités de chacun, pour nous faire plonger dans un univers flottant à la mélancolie trainante, filant entre des masses d’air vertigineuses.
La beauté de Partial Deletion of Everything (Vol. 2) se cache entre chaque interstice, chaque micro silence, enrobés de réverbérations sonores à l’impermanence onirique, laissant des mélodies rêveuses arpenter des cieux ouverts sur l’infini.
En quatre titres, Monogoto bouscule nos sens avec une douceur tournoyante, emportant sur son passage les poussières de vies passées et de futurs incertains, strates connectées entre elles pour implorer le temps de ralentir, afin d’apprécier la beauté d’une nature sauvage en voie d’extinction. Superbe.
Roland Torres
