For those who think the album is a dead or dying form in the era of shuffle and sound snippets, ‘Somn’ is a work that demands complete attention and to be absorbed holistically. The liner notes are telling when they inform the listener that the album is ‘all thematically and sonically linked’, and also that the album was ‘constructed and assembled over summer 2013 up until the start of 2014’. It’s not a collection of songs, thrown into sequence randomly or otherwise, and nor is this a straightforward showcase of Gavin Miller’s compositional skills: ‘Somn’ goes beyond these things into the realms of concept, and the gathering, assembling, ordering, collaging and sequencing of material to reconfigure fragments of the world, to filter them through the mind of another creator.
‘Interrupted (N1)’ opens the album with an ominous droning hum, that slowly, almost imperceptibly undulates, a fuzz around its edges encircling a slow decay. And so begins the journey, 9 tracks spanning 50 minutes – and it is a journey, a sonic narrative which emerges elliptically through the shifting atmospherics and references cast in the track titles. Apparently referencing the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, and the ‘secret’ 103rd floor of The Empire State Building, Miller’s focus is on the unknown and the unknowable, the unseen and the unseeable, the near-mythic and out-of-reach things that inhabit the dream world of sleep.
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‘2182Hz’ builds a swirling vortex of noise, clattering heavy-duty percussion batters away amidst a rising tide of guitar chords that crash down, and down… before ‘Spindle (N2)’ returns to softer terrain. While there are quiet passages that ebb and flow, trickle and pulse, ‘Somniloquy’ stands out as a trance-like Krautrock-inspired work driven by a propulsive beat, before the final track, ‘Cicadian Rhythms (N3 ii)’ disappears down a bass-driven post-rock path, soaring toward the light.
This is it Forever Online
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