Akumu "Fluxes"
A fascinating study in aural landscapes. Beautiful.

"Fluxes" by Akumu is a fascinating exercise in field recordings resulting in a series of very distinct environments. The source material used to create this collection has been masterfully woven together to create pieces both rich in tone and deep in imagery.

Starting with "Quietly Disruptive" we find ourselves surrounded by an almost tidal drone that moves through a state of tranquility to a chaotic soundscape of shimmering metallic sounds and back again. "Eyeless" features a slow build of serpentine tones that play around the soundfield. A sense of tension develops as the piece grows, a feeling of unshakeable unease that continues into "Landscape VIII", a track evoking a scene of haunted wastelands populated only by the rusty shells of slowly dying machines. "Tapeten" is filled with rising and falling tones, the ebb and flow of sound punctuated by clicks and whirring noises suggesting lost forms of binary language and mechanical communication. "Mnmlsms" blends a series of more nuanced tones together, resulting in a track defined by it's subtle movements and gradual shift, deceivingly simple yet rich in complexity.

With the release of "Fluxes", Akumu has created a very engaging collection of tracks. The manipulation of field recordings to make these pieces and the attention to spatial detail therein are the work of true talents who have tapped into a different state of environmental consciousness. I strongly recommend "Fluxes" as an impressive work well worth investigating further.

rik - ping things