Prolific artists Andrew Liles and Daniel Menche combine forces to tackle the subject of flies. Divided into four tracks named for the stages of a fly's life cycle, Liles and Menche blend their talents in a heady mix of drones and subtle textures, with vaguely melodic underpinnings. The album has enough unpredictability to make it both mystifying and alluring while still playing to the artists' respective strengths.
"Eggs" opens with heavy drones that are soon balanced by eerie, slight melodies smeared across the distant background. It's a haunting or at the very least mysterious effect, and the sly introduction of other textures, like faint distortion or mechanical cycles, increases the tension as the track progresses. Heavier bass-wise but overall quieter "1st to 3rd Instar" is also dotted with patches of Liles' piano that aren't a whole lot different from the various "Anhedonia" riffs from his Vortex Vault series. Juxtaposed against whisper-level drones and occasional machine thumps, they sound lonely and bleak. This track is the album's most introspective and comes like the calm before a storm.
The action picks up on "Pupa" with a horse's anguished neigh. It's brief but startling enough to reawaken ears that may have grown dormant over the course of the last track. Bouncing bass tones and a tinny plucked melody lead into metallic overtones, submerged pounding, and faintly buzzing strings that hint of menace. Things come to a head with the finale "Metamorphosis." Not only do the buzzing strings return more agitated than ever, high-pitched screeches like a cacophony of punctured brass instruments grow in a fierce chorus. There's a brief respite before, at last, the flies themselves make an appearance before fading into the void from which they had come.
Liles and Menche make the most of this collaboration, imbuing it with their unique sensibilities to give the album the effective impression of a narrative arc. While this album skirts around territory visited in some of their other work, here the combination of their skills entrances the ear in an entirely different way altogether.
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