Featured post

VIDA DE-sign by Michael Buckingham, aka Mick Muttley

Dear friends (yeah really, one of those) I have become a women's wear designer for VIDA! http://shopvida.com/collections/voices/ ...

Wednesday 27 January 2010

SubVersion Stop 65: Mister Vapor & Altus - Falling Out Of Orbit LP (Just Not Normal 072)

Normality can be priceless, but all the same, there are times when the lure of pastures anew surges through our souls, and demands us to try out new things. Just Not Normal could well be an oasis for music that strays from the conditional norm. As a newcomer to the netlabel, with a weighty 71 releases already in cyberspace, you have to wonder, as is often the case with the digital realm, if quality matches quantity, or antiquation can co-exist with enigmatic fervour.

No matter: Mister Vapor and Altus produce a fine sound on "Sparse Reaches". It's an atmospheric drone work of lengthy stature (25 minutes), in intellectual similarity to the detail of Robert Rich's New Age ambient of "Calling Down The Sky" ilk. Whereas drones can drain the vitality of a listener's attention span, Vapor and Altus usher in a variety of compositional techniques to keep you on the edge of your seat.

"Falling Out Of Orbit" is an appropriate album name - "Immense Revolutions", however, deceptive. It's slower moving, employing twinkle-timbre synthetic washes within an eighth, with a sole drum hit jogging any sedated attendants from drifting out of the auditory stratosphere. Light repetition of notation is thickened by dense walls of atmosphere - Italy's Oophoi springs to mind. When you're close to a quarter of its timespan there are satisfying chord assemblages resonating over reverberated minor keys.

The most important role this LP plays is multifarious - I am piqued to investigate more from Mister Vapor and Altus as singular identities, and the notion of filling up my hard drive with the Just Not Normal tag transposes a delight and not a chore. Which description I leave with on sustained hearing remains to be seen, but for now the future looks rosy.

Download: Mp3 & Flac releases

Mister Vapor: MySpace
Just Not Normal: wordpress

No comments:

Post a Comment