- The new collaborative album Transforma by Avina Vishnu is out shortly on WeMe Records. Both of those names represent a new project from Heinrich Mueller (aka Gerald Donald, member of seminal electro/techno groups Drexciya and Dopplereffekt amongst others) and Aina (whose identity remains cryptic). On Transforma they meld synthetic sounds with more naturalistic ones to make an interesting album of ambience.
It starts with broad, deep synth drones, like an overall initializing sequence. There is vaguely minor dissonance as certain frequencies are highlighted. Soon after we get some birds sounds (whether they are synthetic or not is particularly difficult to tell in this context). Synths burst out of the murk, buzzing intermittently and ricocheting around as birds continue to sound. After five minutes this drops away into washes of white noise atop of some lighter synth pads. A high metallic gurgle seeps in as the passage develops and undulates. The next section returns to drones but with a renewed focus on melody. A haunting lead synth moves above long sustained synth notes. Sounds that evoke some animal laughing or some sort of synthetic chatter come in for a time before more disconcerting synths arrive. The sounds are constantly changing and shifting, keeping things intriguing over the near forty minute length. My favourite segment is the last ten minutes where things take a turn. Drones give way to melodic, Berlin School-style ambience consisting of heavily delayed synth arpeggios, drones and another haunting lead.
Apparently Transforma “focuses on a unification between the natural world and the artificial space of electronic music”. This is true in a sense, but for me it evokes the experimental electronics found of the first half of the Dopplereffekt album Linear Accelerator or the Der Zyklus album Renormalon (also on WeMe). These soundscapes are more ambient however, feeling more like something from Room40.
Another singular record from Donald. In the last twenty years he has touched on many styles of electronic music with various collaborators (the majority of them women). From techno to darkwave to industrial, they’ve gone in different directions his sonic touch remains unmistakeable.
- Hillfolk.