{"id":7041,"date":"2014-03-03T10:50:01","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T09:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=7041"},"modified":"2017-01-02T20:04:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T19:04:52","slug":"ab-ovo-reviewed-by-a-closer-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=7041","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ab OVO\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by A Closer Listen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ab<\/a>
\nThese are not normal puppets, and this is not a normal soundtrack. @c\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs Ab OVO is a recreation of themes for the home listener, a condensation of ideas that were first used to augment the puppet theatre of Porto. Highly original, incredibly dense and occasionally maddening, the new score creates its own intrigue. What exactly were those puppeteers and musicians up to in the S\u00c3\u00a3o Bento da Vit\u00c3\u00b3ria Monastery? And do we really want to know the answer?<\/p>\n

The nearly 66-minute work is oppressive and claustrophobic from its very first note. \u00e2\u20ac\u009d98\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 gurgles and fizzes, pops and bends like the best of Zbeen, an electronic miasma with no immediately recognizable form. The sounds are industrial in nature, although without drums. These clanks and echoes are more suited to the boiler room of a factory than the main floor of a dance hall. The drone provides the constant as disparate noises lurk and lunge. As the album progresses, it continues to retreat to this sonic abyss, defying ready definition or interpretation. In its thickest moments, the album wraps the listener in a blanket of charged ions; but in its thinnest moments, the album leaves the listener cold and shivering. Whenever the drone disappears, the warmth disappears with it.<\/p>\n

The album as a whole feels entirely alien, the work of a visiting species. On the surface, the sonics seem at times to be random, but curious patterns are embedded in the mix, including certain sounds \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a swoosh, a glissando, a percussive pattern \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that are separated by regular intervals. But the longer tracks (especially the 22-minute \u00e2\u20ac\u0153100\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3) tend to meander, disappearing down a rabbit hole. One imagines the puppet becoming the puppeteer as the human holding the strings shrinks in size. Without the visual drama, the context is lost. Fortunately, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough treasure to carry the album through a few desert stretches. \u00e2\u20ac\u009d101\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 pairs robotic pings with electronic waves, like Wall-E at the beach. \u00e2\u20ac\u009d103\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 adds drums, sampled and looped, doubling back to confront their own echoes. In the end, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not sure what is literal and what is metaphorical, an honest reflection of a puppeteer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s craft. (Richard Allen)<\/p>\n

via A Closer Listen<\/a><\/p>\n