After a four-year hiatus, this slumbering drone supergroup has returned with a deeply unsettling and surreal new album. That time was not spent idly, as Above The Sky sounds like it has been sculpted and tweaked to razor-sharp perfection. Despite being the work of three people with three different aesthetics, there is no absolutely trace of ego, compromise, bloat, or wasted time here. This is as perfect as drone music gets.
Above the Sky apparently had a very difficult birth, as it originated from a single concert that Paul Bradley, Colin Potter, and Darren Tate played together in 2006. The trio wasn’t entirely pleased with the recording, so it was gradually embellished, enhanced, layered, and reworked until it finally became “A Place of Voices.” In the process, quite a bit of new material was recorded, some of which cohered into the album’s closing piece. The rest of it wound up as Beneath the Earth, a bonus album that sold-out very quickly.
Each of the two tracks included here is a half-hour long. The first one, “A Place Of Voices,” begins with ominous, queasy droning. As it progresses, the sound slowly undulates and swells while spectral creaks, scrapes and squeals flit about the shadows. However, only the peripheral mindfuckery remains relatively constant, as the trio seamlessly drifts from one movement to another. It flows quite beautifully, but it follows a very unpredictable course, as a cacophony of bowed metals can turn into a pleasant field recording of a flock of chirping birds within mere minutes (and does).
The following piece, “Cloudless Day,” fades in with a shifting, quavering mass of subtly clashing notes and a harsh metallic shimmer. The volume swells and drops unpredictably, heightening the deep sense of unease, and various elements begin to change dramatically until it graduates from “uneasy” to “harrowing.” Then it all abruptly stops, only to begin again in a distant, murky new form. After a while, that limps to a conclusion as well, but is soon replaced by a still more disquietingly hallucinatory phase that calls to mind a haunted hall of mirrors. Ultimately, however, the birds reappear and it all ends on an unexpectedly calm note: the titular “cloudless day,” I suppose (but one that only appears after a trip through hell).
Above the Sky is an album that is malevolently alive, as every single sound is active and holds the potential to morph into either something deeply ugly or an unexpected oasis of calm. It is a constantly and mysteriously shifting sonic terrain that seethes with implied menace. Repeat listens will certainly lessen the impact of the twists and surprises, but there is so much to absorb and appreciate that it won’t matter. This is a brilliant and nightmarish masterpiece from start to finish.
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