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Austere and Stephen Philips "faded"
A collaboration wherein a meeting of minds and a reimagining occurs...

Using sound sources created by the duo Austere, "Faded" is a collaboration between the enigmatic pair and Dark Duck founder Stephen Philips. It's a very interesting collaboration as both parties come from similar drone minded locations and share a number of the same musical values, so much so that during the length of the disc it becomes difficult to distinguish the work of each artist. To that end "Faded" is a wonderful disc featuring three unnamed long form tracks that showcase the talents of all parties involved as a solid unit.

Track 1 captures a dark and dreamy dronescape where variations, details and shapes evolve and become more apparent over time. Being surrounded by a piece like this for so long, the listener is inspired to listen for more, to become more aware of their surroundings and environment and ultimately becomes more concious not only of their musical background, but also of their perceptions of their own space. An engaging and thought provoking work.

Track 2 mixes seemlessly out of 1, maintaining a similar feeling and introducing new ideas. While it's happened very casually, very simply, the listener has been placed in a new location, a new space and it's apparent. Slightly higher tones begin to invade the space and greater variation becomes apparent in the themes of the work.

Track 3 finds us in a slightly more frenetic, more active location where tones and sounds are more pronounced and apparent. Given the new shape and style of the work, this track feels almost melodic in some respects, a greater musicality coming through in the feel of the piece where elements from both earlier tracks play and dodge around eachother. It works very effectively, a successful blend of sounds that satisfies and resolves with the listener.

As I mentioned earlier, "Faded" is a wonderful showcase for the combined talents of both Philips and Austere, a collection of music that both shares ideas with its individual members work, as well as creating a new sound hybrid that takes it's members in new directions and ideas. It's an impressive disc and I hope that there will be more such collaborations to come from this trio.

rik - ping things