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listen to
Aphasia
The Memories Blend

It starts very quietly, a point of silence slowly drawing away being replaced by gentle waves. And gradually, as you become accustomed to your surroundings, you find yourself "Inside the Hollow Realm". A new collaboration by Jesse Sola of Numina and Brett Smith of Caul, "Inside the Hollow Realm" is an inspired pairing that effectively blends the skills and talents of both artists in such a way as to create something new.

Split into three sections of four tracks each, "Collapse of the Spiral Spire", "The Molten Void" and "A Distant Past Fades", the disc has a conceptual flavor to it, a sense of history within. Images take form in the your mind's eye and then pass from conciousness, leaving only a vague memory of their existence.

The first segment "Collapse of the Spiral Spire" opens with "The Wind Speaks", where minimalism and atmosphere slowly give way to strong percussive forms. "Night Sky Descends" passes through the senses like ravens in the dark night sky. "The Gathering" is filled with the sound of electric current fedback through arcane radio systems which bleed into a progressively building drum pattern, bringing to mind a circle, a community. Inspired.

Segment two, "The Molten Void", opens with the same sort of growth from silence, a metallic ringing filling the space. Treated guitar, or is it something else building in the darkness? You can never really tell, images get distorted here and it becomes difficult to trust our senses to describe what we see. "Serpent Sounds" rolls with sleek tones, thin high sounds that weave around you like, well, serpents. "A Brief Reprieve" fills the space with wide open pads, a patch of light in the otherwise dark depths. The reprieve is all too short though, soon to be replaced by the lava like drones of "Molten Flow".

The last segment "A Distant Past Fades" begins with the twinkling starlit patterns of "Aphasia", beautiful, striking, dreamlike. "The Seer" is a study in slowly shifting tones, a sense of mystery, secrets. "Withdrawn" builds in intensity, pads woven through the soundfield like delicate spiderwebs reflecting the light. And then it closes with "The Memories Blend", a summation of all that we've heard, a sense of completion that slowly wraps around itself until it gradually fades. A true delight.

In the past I've made no secret of my appreciation for Jesse Sola's work and I continue to be amazed at his ability to create music that touches me so deeply. With this collaboration his music is perfectly complimented and built upon by Brett Smith and made even more beautiful as a result. I strongly recomend this release to all of you and I eagerly look forward to future collaborations between the two of them.

rik - ping things