Matchess is the Chicago based minimal ambient project of Whitney Johnson and inspired by Whitney's studies into minimalism and spirituality and the women who were at the forefront of that movement like Pauline Oliveros and Juliana Barwick. The album is the work of Whitney's six-piece band.
Side one contains the 18 minute long Almost Gone that opens with a long tone and slowly rumbles in with long tones and a drone that is somewhere between someone running their finger round a glass and the feedback tone that you used to get after tv stations closed down for the night. This moves into a tonal space of meditative tones with minimal adornment.
After about 11 minutes the strings come to the fore to take it to a place of beauty before the disturbing tone takes over at headache inducing frequencies that would clear venues in minutes before it eventually drops away to nothing.
The B-side is Through The Wall that is also 18 minutes long but starts with a long droning viola or violin set against what sounds like manipulated tones from a harmonium. As the piece stretches out it has commonalities with La Monte Youngs Theatre Of Eternal Music, the parts where it falls become rather pretty, only to seem to draw you into the pain of the noises from next door.
About eleven minutes in there is a tonal shift like someone's banging their head against the wall and creating static noises that lead into an almost siren like tone that quavers and wavers through your brain as it slowly fades away to nothingness once more.
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