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Aranos, "And Soon Coffin Sings"
This is an album filled to the brim with the sounds of the space-time beingslowed down to an audible crawl. Sun Ra thought that space was theplace, but Aranos must've decided that such a comment just wouldn't doand took the whole concept a step further: the space-time continuum isthe place, a more ephemeral, seething place.Pieros
If there were gods beforethe universe began, this might've been how they sounded: birds buzzingand calling out over tremendous spaces, questioning the absence ofmaterial and filling it with their cacophonous voices. Aranos' musichas been especially voluminous as of late, being far more free inarrangement and more concerned with the shape of sound rather thanmelody and lyrics. This is the case here, but Aranos' choice ofinstruments makes the abstract sound homey. The buzz of a violin or theoscillation of metal sheets is familiar, providing all the comfortneeded to listen to these three lengthy pieces. True to the (ratherloose) form often associated with textured music, Aranos' soundencompasses a cinematic flare, using the fall of footsteps and thewhisper of excited pipes to portray the architecture of a haunted houseor the gravity of open spaces too large to understand. Consequently,the distinction etched out between the three pieces seems arbitrary,it's nigh on impossible to determine when one starts and the otherbegins.
And Soon Coffin Sings feels like a single pieceimagined in three movements—each moving the music towards theabstract—towards the inevitable hum that vibrates everywhere, ineverything. Halloween might be getting under my skin, but the middlehalf of this album feels creepy, ringing, dancing, and rustling insubtle variations and reproducing the anxiety that something might beright behind me or just around the corner, watching and waiting forjust the right moment to attack. Of course this moment never comes,Aranos only draws the anxiety through the album and never provides anymoment where relaxation might seem like a good idea.
A huge plus, asalways, is Aranos' packaging: this time the album comes in a five-sidedpackage that unfolds to reveal the picture of man with his armsoutstretched, making a welcoming gesture. While the album isn'tdistressing or unwelcoming, it's certainly a strange trip, but one thatAranos is capable of soothing anyone into instead of thrusting theminto the middle of a strange record with no immediate appeals.
Aranos shows no signs of slowing down: this year alone he's released alive album, a 7" for Brainwashed Recordings, a live DVD, a full-lengthstudio recording (Bering Sea) and a live album (Throat Clearance).If Throat Clearance was Aranos' record for inner-space, And Soon Coffin Sings is the sound of that inner-world bleeding away and drenching everything in its viscera.
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