Apparitions: Eyes Like Predatory Wealth

Eyes Like Predatory Wealth by the trio Apparitions is an ambient drone-heavy metal recording and a sound collage, à la Teo Macero and his mad scientist Miles Davis mixes. For their debut recording, guitarist Andrew Dugas and drummer Grant Martin invited Igor Imbu (Wøunds) to add his synthesizer to this geographically diverse collaboration. Meaning: each musician from their studios in Houston, Chicago, and Pawtucket created individual parts from a conceptual outline and for a specific set time (10, 20, and 30 minutes). Each module was then mixed by Seth Manchester to create this sound construction. We're not talking Macero's razor blade cut and paste analog tape approach, more like a Ray Johnson moticos reworked collage.

The result is a power ambient drone experience that is best described as a combination of Sunn O))) plus Balázs Pándi's drums, or Keiji Haino and the Japanese band Boris. From the opening ten minute track "Ecstasy Through Self Destruction," we hear Martin's pounding beats that do not so much drive Dugas' droning feedback guitar and synth wash as they frame the nonstop sludge onslaught. This recording should be played loud. To get the full effect, it is best to feel the sound reverberate in your chest. The twenty minute "River Of Fundament" seizes the ear, not with pounding drums at first, but twinkling metal and a synth wash that cultivates a ghostly ambient soundstage morphing into a wall of feedback guitar sounds plus a return of the drums. The key here is the hypnotic nature of these tracks and their meditative qualities. "The Moon Is Only Aggressive When You Are There," begins its thirty minute time allotment with a levitating synthesizer before soft drum and muted guitar feedback enters, before resolving in a conflagration of feedback. It is the quietest loud music out there.

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