Oren Ambarchi and Johan Berthling | My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights
Häpna | CD
Johan Berthling's co-operation with Australian guitarist Oren Ambarchi is a fine example of purely drone based music, somehow reminding me of a single frozen moment of Tape's 'Opera' (also on Häpna). It exists like a fragment of time flickering with almost unnoticeable change.
If the mood of 'Opera' is a vivid green, yellow and blue, 'My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights' is slowly pulsating in shades of tinted dark magenta.
Ambarchi sends the guitar through a daisy-chained array of effect-boxes; Berthling plays long, slowly ascending chords on the harmonium. Although the music progresses slowly, after a while the tones have interlocked so tightly that they propel each other so everything seems to move faster than light - like the infamous trip into a black hole.
After 30 minutes the journey comes to an abrupt and somehow disturbing end with a more or less quick fade out at a point where the piece seems to change direction. Its a bit of a pity, but I definitely can't say it ruins the whole piece.
Like someone recently suggested, we live in the age of DIY audio helpers, so: copy/reverse/paste for a save landing. Somewhere, probably.
[SM]
