1 Water (11:18)
2 Inside Passage (7:22)
3 Tree Descendant (8:34)
4 Near The Horizon (4:00)
5 Temporal Tributary (7:59)
6 Kootna Hora (3:30)
7 Frail Sinking Spirit (7:39)
8 Nature Devastated (19:33)
Mariage ambient et drone très sombre / field recordings....
Nicolas Lampert, one of the members of the mesmerizing group Noisegate, has joined with a man by the name of Dave Caterbury to form Beneath the Lake, a noise/ambient project that is made up largely of field recordings, but also throws in instruments like guitars and cello, amongst others, to round out a very fine sound.
As far as noise records go, Inside Passage pushes some of the same buttons that you may hear on other groups' albums, but does so perfectly. Field recordings of sea lions, whales and water, fucked up and fuzzed out with thick drones on top make for a heavy and harsh, yet soothing experience. Things get a little scary toward the middle of the album when what sounds like rhythmic bursts of crackling electricity shoot through the speakers to break the lulling drone.
If you are familiar with Noisegates' material, Inside Passage is somewhere in-between Noisegate's two albums. If you don't know about Noisegate, then here's a little history: The band's most recent album, Suspended Animation: Ambient Vol.1, delivers a mellow yet not entirely comforting hypnotic ambience by manipulating bell tones in various ways. The debut record, The Towers are Burning, is a perfect album of fuzzy noise, guitars, bass and fierce yelling of chilling lyrics that is done in such a way as to be scathing yet lulling as it is numbing. Inside Passage may be closer in approach to Suspended..., but there's more than enough of The Towers... to say that it's the best of both worlds.
You'll also get interesting manipulations of field recordings of owls, wasps and wolves. Plus there's a track called "kootna hora," which is referring to the town Kútna Horá in the Czech Republic, a town famous for its little church that holds the artistically displayed bones of 40,000 plague victims. (Look for an article about that soon in Maelstrom.)
Most importantly with albums of this kind, which are the most subjective of any, is that Inside Passage maintains an excellent tone throughout. The tone changes from track to track but always keeps you in that gripping sweet spot that all good noise records should have, and in this case also features excellent packaging with ideal visuals. It even smells right, natural and woody, like cedar. Nice work.
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