underground music reviews – D E C A Y C A S T Magazine

DECAYCAST Reviews : SKY “Lullabies” CS (Pop Nihil, 2019)

Hauntingly lonely, booming caverns seem to be the backdrop for SKY’s “Lullabies” cassette EP on the refreshingly diverse Pop Nihil imprint. First off, the stark design caught my eye, and I enjoy the minimalist design theme that runs across of these releases, it really helps to gel them together in a special and unified way. The voice, synth, and drums all blend perfectly on this EP, creating a morose, and lush cloud for the uncertain change of the future to be birthed upon. Cavernous reverb on the drums, and strings (synths?) cast a hollow but intentioned place for the voice to dance upon into the night. Favorite track of the A side is “ILIKELIES” though, they all really present a focused and uniformed sound. Like the voice and rhythm section of early Cocteau Twins, mixed with the delicacy and nuance of contemporary avant -garde megastars like FKA Twigs nodding to the softer side of Witchhouse. popnihil SKY paints a blissful portrait of an unknown place where the next step is to be taken, the only thing that’s certain in uncertainty. The B side is a little more driving with a ear forward bass and drum rhythm that escalates the pacing and tension from the soft and intricate spells cast by the first side. Closer to tara Cross or a chopped and screwed TuxedoMoon the big percussion and thudding bass create a nice, angular tension for the voice and delicate droning synths to skate off lightly but boldly into the distance, a truly beautiful and nuanced listen.

DECAYCAST REVIEWS Petridisch – A Fixed Point” CD/Cassette (I Heart Noise, 2017)

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Petridisch”A Fixed Point” CD/Cassette are already sold out in physical form (both CD and cassette) but you can get a free download over there at the I Heart Noise Bandcamp Page , which is a label and multimedia platform hosting a rather active blog of the same name. Petridisch’s vocal and percussion forward offerings of multi-layered, slow ambient sonic explosions and chants of densely layered synths, build a wide variety of complex timbral experiments and densely articulated specimens. On “A Fixed Point”, Petridisch begins with slow shimmering waves of ambient, buzzing waves, decaying, cavernous claps and slowly and steadily builds layers of washed over plumes of texture and memory while structures of rhythm and percussion begin to take form. Synthesizers slowly and craftily edge their way in with soft, present swells, mid tempo arpeggiated sines, and layers of ambient noise sustaining bright, shimmering, articulate sonic events.

The voice is an important part of this record and it adds a beautiful cloak around the various track elements and really does gel all of the different elements together as a compositional superglue. Four short, ambient explorations pull equally from The Cocteau Twins, Boards Of Canada, early Eno and so much more, and so much less in the best way possible, as Petridisch truly has cast their own unique sound into the ethos of the word of endless sonic discovery and invention. For fans of ambient, drone, early Tangerine Dream, Terry Riley, and early synthesizer music, Petridisch packs a huge arsenal of sonic weapons in a release that is barely twelve minutes long, Highly recommended.

Petridisch