Status: Single
City: Brooklyn
State: New York
Country: US
Signup Date: 3/4/2005
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
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Category: Music
Babysue
http://www.LMNOP.com/2009-Nov-..LMNOP-Reviews.html#..anchor113684
1 November 2009
Review: 5 out of 5
Aarktica is the one man band consisting of Jon DeRosa...who, over the past few years, has developed a small but incredibly devoted cult following. In Sea is DeRosa's sixth full-length release. Once again, it's a total keeper. The album features trance-like atmospheric pieces and subdued pensive soft pop tracks...each flowing into the other like ocean currents. Although the overall sound is markedly different, the tone here is strangely reminiscent of Brian Eno's Another Green World. Far too obtuse and cerebral for the casual listener, In Sea is an album that will continue to solidify Jon's superior standing among other artists and esoteric music fans around the world. Subtle, distant, haunting, and mesmerizing tracks include "I Am (The Ice)," "LYMZ," "In Sea," "Instill," and a truly peculiar cover of Danzig's "Am I Demon?" TOP PICK.2 November 2009
Review: 78%
To say In Sea is ideal listening for facing the notion of enormity, what with its epic-sized guitars and romantic ambience, perhaps best describes the work of Aarktica. After all, few could doubt the chilling grace that permeates, shifts and occasionally cracks these glacial studies of tone, which in their humble build or collapse bring to mind far-reaching horizons and barren landscapes. Yet to pontificate any which way Aarktica should be heard comes attached with a giant asterisk as its author, Jon DeRosa, doesn’t hear his records the way we do. Having suffered permanent, near-total hearing loss in his right ear due to nerve damage, DeRosa’s tale is a unique one; beginning with No Solace In Sleep, a recording that survived aural hallucinations and painkiller-addiction, Aarktica’s discography has been a battle for sound – first re-experiencing it, then exploring its new parameters
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Yet when I looked up his Myspace page, the first track I heard was ‘Seventy Jane’; a near-perfect pop track of new-wave vocals and chiming guitar. I’ve revisited that Matchless Years track several times since, each time finding another detail worth hearing on my headphones, but its indie-rock swagger seemed to void DeRosa’s painful back-story as if his hearing loss hadn’t prevented him from playing ball with everyone else. In Sea changes that; blurring the obvious pop hooks that sought to classify him and re-approaching his passion for tonal studies with a veteran’s wisdom, DeRosa has delivered what is being hailed as a return-to-form album by Aarktica fans. ‘I Am (The Ice)’ casts a frozen establishing shot for DeRosa’s guitar-work, peppering tense, processed strums against clouds of edgeless, warm tones. Its effect, both unnerving and calming, sums up the widescreen vibe of In Sea as a whole, stepping into deep layers of guitar structures that circle or swell in subtle patterns (‘Instill’, the title track). Better yet, DeRosa has incorporated tricks learned from his post-No Solace In Sleep shoegaze efforts, bringing bittersweet riffs to ‘Onward!’’s encroaching heaviness and welcome, moody vocals to album-highlight ‘Hollow Earth Theory’. While these restrained pop flourishes are sporadic and spread-out (only two cuts feature vocals), their post-punk feel provide enough pulse to jolt In Sea from its still-life crawl.
While Aarktica has proven capable of competing with any shoegaze band that can hear in stereo, DeRosa’s battle to understand sound has transformed his condition – which, in this art, should’ve been considered a handicap – into an advantage. Finding emotional details in minimal arrangements, In Sea is a homecoming for ambient-drone enthusiasts… a group that no doubt finds DeRosa at the front of the pack.
Music Musings And Miscellany (Glasgow, Scotland)
http://dezji.wordpress.com/..2009/11/04/album-aarktica-in-..sea-silber-078-2009/
3 November 2009
Jon DeRosa’s Aarktica project covers ground where many have trod before, namely the use of guitar, loops, feedback, distortion and tape manipulation to make musical atmospheres and mood pieces. As the name suggests, the dominant aura is one of cold, oceanic isolation. But there is more to In Sea than an hour of Arctic ambience.
DeRosa lost almost all hearing in his right ear ten years ago, so the way he perceives sound is different to most of us. What is obviously a severe handicap for a musician, he has used to create sound slightly differently. Instead of stereo separation, he concentrates on depth and distance. It’s the aural equivalent of watching a movie without left-right panning but in 3D. A good example of this is the opener “I Am (The Ice)” where a guitar figure of graceful serenity dominates the foreground while the background is a tumult of crackle, feedback and distortion.
Some tracks on the album set moods, but don’t really develop anything with it. The best are more adventurous or, paradoxically, more traditionally structured. The deep, submerged drone of “A Plague of Frost” is almost free of rhythm or solidity and the title track, with its homophonic pun of a title, recreates the repetitive minimalism of Terry Riley.
On the other hand, some of the stand out pieces move away completely from the realms of the ambient. The gentle “Young Light” is upbeat, almost childlike. And the two actual songs are real gems. “Hollow Earth Theory” (as in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth) is beautiful and delicate pop. Even better is the closing cover of Danzig’s “I Am Demon” which turns Satanic metal into an almost folk-ish appeal for peace and rest. It’s a stunning interpretation.
In Sea has a few generic patches, but enough passages of beauty and distinction to leave it standing head and shoulders above most in what is becoming an ever more crowded field.
We have good news from old friends at Silber Records. They have found one of the very few bands from New York who can do something other than play very, quickly, very loudly, very sulkily and very badly. This wondrously rare band is called Aarktica and their latest thoughtful, top drawer, cinematic shoe-gazing has been lovingly spooned into the grooves of a long playing record called In Sea. We're particularly taken with their cover of the old Danzig track, "Am I Demon?", something that you could and maybe should hear on their myshite page.
Undomondo (Istanbul, Turkey) 5 November 2009
In Sea is Jon DeRosa's sixth full-length release as Aarktica. Although I haven't been familiar with his previous output, it's easy to hear the maturity of his sound after only a few tunes. Recommended if you like: Labradford, Windy & Cary, Ennio Morricone, Eluvium, Mogwai, Seefeel, Earth, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Spacemen 3 and are in need of dreamy and suicidal music.
God Is In The TV (UK) 9 November 2009
Aarktica is a minimal musical project by Brooklyn’s Jon DeRosa, who has been joined by a fleet of musicians from time to time. The project is over a decade in the making, having started life on a 4-track in the dorms of New York University, and album number [six] has just been released. The subtleties of the music are put as gently in motion as a paintbrush to canvas. When notes build up and ring out, as gradually and carefully as they do in songs like Young Light, the swell of music is almost palpable. This is delicately crafted ambient music. Sparseness is a key to the way songs rise and float. DeRosa conceives his songs in mono, since he has hearing in only one ear, which means he is influenced by ‘audio distortions, aural hallucinations and a reliance on painkillers’. This is guitar based emotional post-rock with reliance on riffs that gain gravity by winding around repetitively and hypnotically like pretty but stuck thoughts. Interesting-to-note influences include: Hood, The Chameleons, and Low; all of which can be detected either in mood or style. There is also a Sarah Records feel to the vocals and indie pop ofSeventy Jane, which has crisp 80s keyboards and stunningly beautiful chorus pedal guitar. In Sea couldn’t be a more apt name for Aarktica’s new release, there’s a holy power and sense of rise and fall with the music. The album In Sea is out now on Silber Records, and the back catalogue is available via iTunes.
Opus
http://opus.fm/view/aarktica_..in_sea/
11 November 2009
For nearly ten years, Jon DeRosa has been producing music with the goal of capturing the sounds that exist inside his head. That may be the goal for all musicians, but in DeRosa’s case, there’s a bit more to it than that. You see, DeRosa is deaf in one ear and as a result, has had to live with aural distortions and hallucinations (not to mention the effects of painkillers)—all of which have served as inspiration for his music.
Originally, his attempts consisted of drone-oriented ambient recordings such as 2000’s No Solace In Sleep. Subsequent albums—e.g., 2003’s Pure Tone Audiometry, 2005’s Bleeding Light—saw DeRosa eschewing his earlier, pure ambient approach for a more structured, song-oriented sound.
Those later recordings contained memorable moments, but I’ve always found Aarktica’s music most affecting and involving when DeRosa is truly immersed in his dronework, however ominous and unsettling it might be. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I like In Sea so much, as Aarktica’s latest finds DeRosa returning to the noisier drones and atmospherics that first typified Aarktica.
Well… almost.
Don’t get me wrong: In Sea ranks up there with No Solace In Sleep when it comes to atmospherics, but they’re cleaner and more polished this time. The result, I’m sure, of both recording in a real, honest-to-God studio (by contrast, No Solace In Sleep was recorded in a dorm room on a dying 4-track) and DeRosa’s decade of experience coaxing all manner of sounds from his gear.
This is best seen in the album’s opening track, “I Am (The Ice)”, where DeRosa sets off slowly revolving tundra drones while a band of sparkling, crystalline guitar notes arcs high overhead. It’s a gorgeous and rather affecting piece that evokes an Arctic sunrise as much as the most glorious moments of Flying Saucer Attack’s career. Later, on the title track, DeRosa picks out a gentle guitar melody then sets it adrift amidst a sea of guitar effects and noise swells—meanwhile, the reverbed sounds of his hands sliding along the guitar strings adds a human feel to the otherwise otherworldly music. And finally, on “When We’re Ghosts”, DeRosa wraps the listener in tight guitar loops before lashing out with violent, ragged bursts of noise, which results in the album’s most gripping moments.
But even though In Sea is a return to Aarktica’s roots, there are some surprises, most notably in the vocals. DeRosa’s voice has always been Aarktica’s weakest element for me: his music is strongest when he steps back and lets his atmospherics do the singing. But DeRosa’s voice appears on two of In Sea‘s tracks, and they turn out to be two of the album’s finest moments.
The first is “Hollow Earth Theory”, which gets my vote for DeRosa’s best vocal performance to date: here he sings “We will wait and we will see/If it’s right to put our faith all/In this hollow earth theory” over building layers of guitar. It’s a simple enough approach, and yet the song’s longing-filled lyrics and surging melodies combine to have quite an emotional effect.
The second is a cover of Danzig’s “Am I Demon”. At first, it seems like a joke—I think I did a double take when I read the press release—but as DeRosa distantly sings “Am I beast or am I human/Am I just like you?/Power seething, really reeling, reaching out for you/Am I demon? Need to know” while surrounded by murky, ominous tones and somber guitar lines, he achieves a sense of foreboding that far outshines Danzig’s original version.
T.S. Eliot’s famous quote—“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”—strikes me as an appropriate description of In Sea. After ten year of sonic exploration, In Sea is a return to where DeRosa began, the result being an album that represents a deeper exploration and knowledge of his familiar sounds. As such, it’s probably replaced No Solace In Sleep as my favorite Aarktica recording—no longer can I say “I liked their earlier stuff better” in good conscience—and I hope it sets the stage for Aarktica’s next ten years.
Terrascope 15 November 2009
Jon DeRosa returns with the sixth full length release of his Aarktica project, a "sea"quel of sorts to his No Solace In Sleep (2000) debut. The title is also a reverential pun on Terry Riley’s seminal In C, as well as a description of his auditory hallucinations resulting from the near-total hearing loss in his right ear caused by nerve damage that left him experiencing sound as if underwater, or "in sea." As with those previous recordings, DeRosa relies primarily on repetitive, contemplative minimalist drones, thus enabling him to replicate the sonic textures of those "auditory hallucinations." Fans of sonic guitarscape manipulators Stars of The Lid, Windy & Carl, Landing, Eno, Azusa Plane, et. al. will identify with DeRosa’s glacial, atmospheric creations, which ebb and flow in waves of textural dissonance. The release is also a nod in the direction of DeRosa’s teachers, LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela (memorialized in the floating mood enhancer, ‘LYMZ’ that envelops the listener in a warm sonic bath), who taught him composition and Indian classical vocal music, as well as instilled in him the ability to "hear without ears by relying on the physical vibrations of his instrument and vocal chords." ‘Hollow Earth Theory’ is one of only a few tracks with a more traditional song structure, albeit one with cascading and backward guitar loops and a soothing vocal that deserves a wider audience – someone needs to get this on Art Garfunkle’s next solo album. And ‘A Plague of Frost (In the Guise of Diamonds)’ is as visual as its title suggests, conjuring images of glacial icebergs flowing across the frosted Arctic Circle or the heavenward ascension of morning dew evaporating in the morning sun. Too often maligned as elevator Muzak or aural wallpaper, DeRosa’s dip into the snorecore gene pool, like his forebears, illustrates the innumerable nuances one can coax out of an electric guitar, turning the potential six-stringed implement of destruction into a magic wand summoning deep-seated emotions like serenity, weightlessness and contemplative navel gazing within the listener. The gamut of emotions In Sea conjures, be it a tear in the eye or a smile on the lips, will vary greatly by the listener’s current state of mind and emotional integrity. However, it’s the ability to reach into the inner ear and depth of the soul and speak to us on a primordial level that is In Sea’s greatest asset. Jason DiEmilio of the aforementioned Azusa Plane committed suicide three years ago (on the very day I write this), partially due to his frustration over his inability to hear the music he was composing. While DeRosa may suffer from a similar affliction and few albums have brought me to such similar depths of despair, we can rejoice that he has chosen to exorcise his inner demons through that music. Perhaps that’s why he tongue-in-cheekily chose to end this fascinating journey with a mournfully morose cover of Glenn Danzig’s ‘Am I Demon?’ - Jeff Penzcak
Cows Are Just Food 12 November 2009
the most suprising thing about this record is not the cover of danzig’s (video below) am i demon? it’s not the fact that the fella who made the bugger lost the hearing in his right ear. nope. the shock-o-rama here is that with that name, the song titles and the now standard for fans of: (gy!be, labradford, eluvium) it’s not only an incredibly pretty fifty minutes, but it’s a rather warm inviting melodic one too. it’s all very kranky-esque in it’s mixture of the deconstructed and reconstructed organic sounds of strings and keys. if i had to draw parallels, and i’m lazy so i must, it’d be the drawn out lynchisms of stars of the lid or the beautiful fractured slo-pop of windy & carl (who frankly never get the plaudits they deserve). yeah like i said this’d be the time i’d usually drag out all my snowy, blizzardy, glacial chilly wintry metaphors. but no. not today fuckers. this is more like sinking into the warm mediterranean sea, letting the water carry you, feeling the sun on yr face, oozing through closed eyelids, licking lapping gently on yr brain. no doubt everybody including derosa himself would tell me to shut my cakehole, that this shit is all epic blinding white and outerspace cold. well to that i’ll say whatevah. hint’s of joy divisions closer, terry riley, jangle pop on downers (i.e. low). it’s physical (my woofer is vibrating things across the desk as i listen). it’s emotional (not hysterical as some of this kindofthing tends to be). it goes mmmmm. as in the onomatopoeic noise to denote a pleasurable taste experience; as in the om like transcendental vibration that runs through the entire album. exceptional.
The Silent Ballet
http://www.thesilentballet...com/dnn/Reviews/tabid/54/ctl/..Details/mid/438/ItemID/2897/..Default.aspx
15 November 2009
The breadth of sound that can be encompassed by the ‘drone’ moniker is rather large. Consider sounds ranging from Earth and Brian Eno (at times) to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Timbres range from sweet to rich and full, to harsh and indigestible. It is the all encompassing nature of drone that makes it a fickle friend in the world of music. It is easy for bands/performers to fall prey to what I would like to call sitting-in-a-bedroom-fiddling-..around-with-a-guitar-and-some-..effects-and-maybe-a-keyboard-..while-bored-one-night syndrome. By this, I mean that sometimes drone albums end up sounding like they were recorded in one night while someone was playing around with his new effects pedal and thought he had made something cool. I understand the desire to create music that is not reliant upon melody, time signature, pacing, or any other traditional constructs, but I am a firm believer that all good music has a purpose. I find this purpose to be lost in some lackluster drone recordings that are merely experiments of sound and nothing more. While Aarktica does not fall wholly into this category, there are elements that seem not as refined as others. However, In Sea has many positives that must be praised first.
Opener “I Am (The Ice)” is a wonderful mix of strumming guitar post-rock with thick dark drones rounding out the sound. The song has movement, but it definitely sets the tone for the rest of the album. The listener gets a sense that this album is going to be something along the lines of drone or ambient, but there is the possibility for something more, as exhibited by the relatively vibrant guitar line amidst the drone.
“Hollow Earth Theory” is a surprising song following the opener, a rather cut and dry drone falling pray to the ‘syndrome’ piece “Lymz.” Fairly safe chord progressions played on the guitar introduce a vocal line that is melodic and rather pleasant. Reversed guitar tones add a reminder that this isn’t a pop album, but overall the sound is mellow and straightforward. In the context of the rest of the album ,this song, while pleasant, really sticks out in a way that is not really good or bad, it is just there.
“A Plague of Frost (In The Guise of Diamonds)” has perhaps the opposite sound to the 'syndrome' mentioned above. This droning piece has a definite beginning and end – the first steps to establishing purpose. The timbres are always morphing, yet layers add movement and life to the ongoing drone of the song. Waxing and waning complexity solidify a more purposeful intention beyond just playing some cool sounds on the guitar. The sound is overall robust yet minimal.
The abrupt ending of many of these songs betrays some elements of the ‘syndrome’ mentioned above. After an obvious effort has been put in to making a song full of rich layers and timbres, it would be wise to finish with matching effort to finalize and complete that idea. All too often, a song ends with what is clearly just a decision to stop playing as a quick fade completes the track. Three songs in a row, “Onward,” “Young Light,” and “Autumnal,” among others, end in this way, and it leaves an unfinished emptiness to the album. Even the slightest resolution of idea or even more drawn out, meaningful fade would add just enough polish to solidify In Sea as a whole.
Aarktica walks a fine line on In Sea, skirting close to the realm of inconsequential fiddling, yet for the most part, each song accomplishes some sort of goal and justifies its existence. Some tracks on the album shine while others leave me questioning their reason for being included in the lineup. However, In Sea has some excellent multi-layered and multi-textured songs that more than make up for its minor shortcomings and complete a well rounded and continually evolving album. - Greg Norte
Milenio 19 November 2009
(English translation): Aarkticas music, close to that of Stars of the Lid and Eluvium, are the the ones I like most in ambient music of this decade. I preferred his first albums because the more recent one only certain tracks excited me, not the entire album, impersonal and distant included for a project whose name evokes cold deserts. That is why it makes me happy now to listen to In Sea, the LP that Aarktica came out with this autumn, of the more balanced of his carreer and the one that best distills the accumulated experience.
It struck me as when you are watching a movie and you swear something is CGI, then you see the "behind the scenes" and discover that was not the case. I imagined a team of collaborators and a varied list of instruments, but no- Jon DeRosa did this album ( that's the name of the guy penned Aarktica) completely solo,and he hasn't bothered with electronic instruments rightfully said. Everything he has dreamed of here has come out of a guitar and a Bilhorn organ from the 30s, yes, some effects have worked out directly from the recording tape, like in the origins of ambiance.
Going in do you think something like this isn't for you? I invite you to listen two songs of traditional format that appear on it, both sung by DeRosa: "Hollow Earth Theory" and a anticipated cover of (take it!) Danzig, "Am I Demon", of which they've done a video Virginia Apicella and Beppe Blasi in Italy. They point in distinct directions, the first is of a deliberate optimism practically absent in the previous work of this writer; the second conserves the original tone, taking to a state of meditative intention.
The rest, purely instrumental, remits the debut album No Solace in Sleep, but more melodic, with sharp instances of guitar that develops over drones and chords in progression, like advancing over a desolate field with a first light dawning over the horizon. "LYMZ" is a thanks to La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Aarktica's mentors, who besides composing and Indian traditional song, taught them to listen to the music isolated when you can't perceive it like the rest of hte public, something that was determining so that DeRosa could abandon rock and folk and could go forth in the genre like we know him now.
2. In the ambiance legends are not absent, the biographical moments that explain musical findings. Starting with the foundational myth, the anecdote with which Brian Eno explains how he decided his transition from glam and rock to the foundation of the seal (disquero?) Obscure, which has been in a collection of diverse texts. I am reproducing here, a fragment:
"In January of 1975 I had an accident, a taxi hit me. I wasn't seriously injured, but I was confined to a bed in a static and rigid position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me an album of harp music from the 18th century. After she marched on, and with lots of difficulty, I put on the disc. When I was laying down, I noticed that the volume was extremely low and one of the channels of the stereo was not working. Since I didn't have sufficient energy to get up and fix it, the disc was almost inaudible. I was laying in a (semipenumbra?) and then I began to listen to the disc like I've never listened to music before. It was a really beautiful experience. It had the sensation of icebergs. I couldn't hear more than on a few occasions the louder types of music. I couldn't perceive more than tiny bursts of notes that reached me from above from the noise of the rain outside. Like that, I starte dto reflect over music as ambiant (Brian Eno cited for Quim Casas en Loops, a history of the music electronic p.86).
Harold Budd also explains his music, also with a personal history. He was raised in the Mojave desert and the sound of the wind agains the telephone cables, and the electrict currents were the sonar band of his infancy. His music is more out there than the primary sounds, but is born out of this memory. In Jon DeRosa's case, it's trreated of a contentment that he been able to turn himself of witht he rest of his life: in the end of the 90s he lost his capacity to listen with his right ear, which produced auditory hallucinations and a sensation to listen to things "like if he was underwater." The title that he has chose now, In Sea, alludes to this condition, at the samet ime that he has made a play with words out of "In C," the minimal composition of Terry Riley. Putting aside the puns and the personal experiences, be willing to submerge yourself in this album. If it attracts to you, first visit No Solace in Sleep (with a warning there is no deceit: it's more dense and somber).
Autres Directions 24 November 2009
Que s’est-il passé dans la vie de Jon DeRosa depuis Matchless Years paru en 2008 ? A-t-il touché le succès de trop près avec son projet Aarktica ? Lui qui semblait avoir abandonné les drones au profit d’une écriture plus pop éthérée, a-t-il eu l’impression de se perdre loin de ses bases, de ses racines ? En avait-il assez de faire appel aux autres pour donner corps à sa musique ? En tout cas, après son exil sur la Côte Ouest, le voilà de retour au bercail après plusieurs réalisations chez Darla. Un retour à propos puisque Aarktica applique scrupuleusement les canons édictés par la label de Caroline du Nord. Seul maître à bord de son navire fantôme, il inscrit In The Sea, dans la continuité de Pure Tone Audiometry, son album le plus ambiant justement paru en 2003 sur... Silber Records. Comme quoi, on peut parfois se fier aux "étiquettes". Un véritable revirement, car les mélodies "catchy" de Matchless Years, l’évidence même qui transparaissait tout au long de ses précédents disques, sont ici trop souvent délayées au fil de longues plages ambiantes, essentiellement instrumentales. A tel point qu’on est bien à la peine pour s’accrocher à un motif mélodique sur certaines plages éthérées à l’extrême. Le long morceau A Plague Of Frost (In The Guise Of Diamonds) est ainsi une sorte de plongée dans un abyme de néant ; Instill tourne en boucle au gré des vagues et du ressac, alors que Onward ! ou In Sea se situent tout juste au dessus de la ligne de flottaison : des étendues d’eau calme tout juste parcourues d’une très légère brise. Heureusement, par ailleurs, il y a un peu plus de mouvement, de courant, et l’ondulation prend forme lorsque Aarktica déploie des lignes de guitare lumineuses sur un tapis synthétique dense comme sur Young Light, l’un des morceaux les plus intenses d’In The Sea, ou When We’tre Ghosts, presque tempétueux. Et puis, il y a Hollow Earth Theory, poussé par la dérive littorale depuis les rivages de Matchless Years pour venir s’échouer ici : Jon DeRosa chante alors une belle chanson mélancolique, une bulle en apesanteur, qui fait amèrement regretté qu’il ait délaissé cette orientation sur In The Sea. La reprise en fin de parcours de Am I Demon ? de Danzig, seul autre morceau chanté, ne fait qu’accroître ce sentiment : après une album à la douceur cotonneuse, Aarktica livre un album glacial.
Rock Midgets22 November 2009
While the name may sound like a form of metal either epic or gothic, the music could not be further removed. The brainchild of Jon DeRosa, Aarktica was formed after nerve damage made him deaf in one ear over a decade ago. The result was the haunting soundscapes of No Solace In Sleep, which was followed by more material that led to elements of shoegaze and folk. But here on In Sea, DeRosa returns to the soundscapes of his début.
The album is haunting in a way that's both bleak and beautiful. The drones of 'I Am (The Ice)' and 'A Plague Of Frost (In The Guise Of Diamonds)' aren't so much to be listened to, but more to be felt. They vibrate the chest but despite their monikers leave you warmed. Where some drone music can be insufferably dull, there's something gripping about this record, a hard to describe something that ensnares you as much as it immerses you as each note blends into the next. 'Onward!' and 'Young Light' offer a more upbeat lesson in soundscaping, while vocals arrive on the folksy 'Hollow Earth Theory' and the closing cover of Danzig's 'Am I Demon?'.
Far from lively, just because In Sea won't move you physically doesn't mean it won't move you. We've used haunting already in this review, but there's no more apt word to describe an album which says so much without saying much at all. With nothing used but guitar and organ, this is nothing short of mesmerising beauty. Phill May
5:28 PM
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