Æthenor – “En Form For Blå” [download FULL ALBUM free here; then buy it; don't be a douche-er]
There’s nothing like a Texas night in Corpus Christi when the wind is down and the stars are out. All you can hear are the crickets, the soft rustle of tree branches, the pitter-patter of stray-cat feet on the street and, of course, the omnipresent sound of my body slowly excreting sweat.
Truth be told, I look for an excuse to go outside; I’ve even taken up cigarettes — just one or two a day — in order to fully enjoy the Big Guy’s handiwork (quite a paintbrush he’s got). Strange thing is, I don’t think people around here even realize how gorgeous it is out here, next to the ocean and a churning plethora of oil rigs. Who knows, maybe they’ve never taken the time to listen …
I feel the same way about under-the-radar projects like Æthenor — in-the-know types are all over releases like this, but the average person would be more likely to accept an ass-raping than listen to them for more than 10 or 20 minutes (this is true even of most of my longtime Music Friends) because they don’t convey obvious emotions or marry themselves to overarching themes. Even Æthenor member Stephen O’Malley‘s “day band,” Sunn(((O (if I didn’t get the typography right sue me; oh, and the other Æthenor members are Daniel O’Sullivan, Kristoffer Rygg and Steve Noble), is like a paragon of pop compared to the befuddling, baffling sprawl of En Form For Blå; I suppose expecting to share its warm glow with anyone but the few who might stumble upon this blog is naive.
Ironically, I find En Form For Blå to be a lot more approachable than many of the one-off live recordings common amongst the Jim O’Rourke/Ben Chasny/Sunburned Hand Of The Man/John Wiese/Chris Corsano/you-get-the-friggin’-IDEA crowd. It never feels emotionally stilted like Basalt Fingers or maybe some or the KTL stuff, nor awkward like the further reaches of the Ghost/Acid Mothers Temple universe or the Jackie-O Motherfucker axis (keep in mind I follow all the preceding bands in their own right), and it never stops shapeshifting; it refuses to sit down or unplug or coast on autopilot when there are perfectly good circuits to tweak and cymbal to tap.
I take that back — there are stretches on Side D wherein it’s difficult not to be a tad let down, albeit only because A-C are so delicately — and brutally — delivered. But the general mood here is melted liquid, burned down to the core then resurrected as ashes, fluttering and floating in the gray-black-yellow night like the eyes of a bat in a cold, dark cave (not a Cold Cave reference) or the flitter of sparks from a cigarette or the crackle of a campfire rejecting a substance with a desperate “POP.”
En Form For Blå is consistent, too. I look forward to the quiet, restrained moments of empty-desert drifting as much as I do the blockheaded shards of fist-pound; that’s rare. I’m a convicted disc-skipper/fast-forwarder; I know what I want when I touch the needle to plastic, and if I don’t get it I’m liable to make a change sooner than later, esPECially if the music comes from one of those recordings of a random live show in Europe that some nameless label chose to sling out of its bitter rectum.
Æthenor, however, do the trick.
Side B is where it all comes together. Slow, marching synths plucked from the Harmonia/Cluster/neon-prog tree, gently rolling snare, a low, thrumming undercurrent that rages and roars when it needs to, a lonely cornet, an occasionally angry drummer … not much left to say, other than I wish this was what I heard when I turned on ANYTHING — my radio, TV, maybe even my toaster — but alas, all I’ve got are these thick vinyl records and a pocket full of sadness.
I think I’ll live!
