Adjacency Pair - self-titled
The CD comes in a simple green sleeve and there isn't any information about the identity of Adjacency Pair. There isn't the brutish push of a press release one-sheet to confuse the reviewer. There is simply the music. Adjacency Pair -- whomever they may be -- simply prefer to let the music do the talking, or rather, as it turns out as I hear these ten tracks, to let the music whisper.
Buoyed by gentle ambient washes, minute clicks, and just the ghost of noise, the songs of Adjacency Pair are marvelous excursions to quiet restful places. "Maghio" washes over you like lambent moonlight, the flickering motion of the lunar glow caressing your face. "Noyaii" bubbles and chatters like something from an Arovane record, the beats a gentle propulsion beneath the bright slow tones of the melody. A metallic susurration of old steam pipes drives "Aphraq," a symphony of half-inch pipes gorting and jetting white stacks of cold smoke.
There is a chiaroscuro world being built here, a land of flickering light and moving shadow. The tracks crackle with restrained energy, buzz with the subtle movement of electronic pulses. Streamers of gossamer light arc overhead like atmospheric draperies of the Aurora Borealis. "Kiswahjola" takes you to the edge of a cliff, the dark sea undulating beneath you, the sky alight with the reds and greens and yellows of the phantom light. "Yugaqh" undulates on an endless journey towards a horizon flickering with dawn. Shadows stretch out on either side of you, a contrail of sparking light dazzles your wake. A resolute hum echoes in your chest, a slow melody which is held aloft by its own weightless construction. "Elambah" shivers with a single shortwave signal, an abrupt signal fragmented by the corrosive atmosphere. Surrounding this fractured signal is the glittering sky, a dome of luminous curtains.
Adjacency Pair craft a debut which transports the listener to an antediluvian country which exists prior to the invention of language, where all communication is accomplished through sound and sensation. The track titles suggest a guttural, yet lyrical, tongue which is filled with breath and space, reflecting the open and infinite vista of the sky which is constantly filled with arcs of prismatic light. Beautiful.
Hands [2003]
music
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