"A kind of soundtrack for the apocalypse. [...] In the 15-minute track 'Washing Over', it is as if a jet-black, devastating tidal wave is crashing over everything. You hear deep, heavy drones, gritty noise and detuned pianos, making it all sound even more unheimisch [eerie], to use a nice Dutch word. Donat pours a throat-grabbing wave of sound over you, in which many details can still be heard. [...] The album concludes with the no less than 20 minutes long Resident Sea, which takes you desolately into the very last night. It is grim, terrifying and also a cry for help not to have to go through this scenario." - De Subjectivisten (NL)
"Cascading synth pads, subliminal noise, bright tones, dark notes, and the constant feeling of bittersweet brokenness. Somehow Donat manages to communicate the energy of emotion without resorting to lyrics or simple melodies." - Issues Magazine (USA)
“'Washing Over' is full of droning tones. Darkly menacing and horrific tones lap over one another like the rising waves on our shores. At times I felt like I couldn’t breathe and began remembering moments of swimming underwater as a child – how dulled my senses became, especially my sense of hearing. [...] tremorous and heavy as it is, somewhat recreated this cocoon like experience for me. [...] 'Resident Sea' is a twenty-minute meditation on the cataclysmic deluge [...] a stunning piece and my personal favourite. There are no more mammals roaming the dry lands because there is no land. Fish find their way into your old suburban neighbourhood. Fish find their way into your skyscraper. [...] There are highly subtle gradations of colour and timbre that are equally haunting and beautiful." - Heresiarch Music Reviews (CAN)
"Maintaining a similar if more urgent mood [...] while [The Lonely Bell's "Ghost Town Burning"] peals from the abyss, Tremors Today hurtles us into it. Here, the air is corrosive. Though low and slow, it has an admonitory stridency. It is an accomplished work of dark ambience, beautiful in fact, save for the uncomfortable fact that its plotline is our current climate disaster." - Avant Music News (USA)
ENGLISH:
While Leonard Donat’s debut album, “Deer Traps” (2017), operated in the threshold between city and nature, creating foggy and crackling veils over looped classical instruments, the follow-up is the soundtrack for the global apocalypse, the rising sea level and its aftermath.
Plunge deeply into the cosmos of "Tremors Today" and its washed out drones, detuned pianos and slowly spiralling tones to experience a terrifying, yet strangely soothing blanket of sound and noise. The opening piano arpeggios of “Incoming Anomaly” are a harbinger of what’s to come, yet it can’t compete with the giant flood that follows with the 15-minute “Washing Over”, a mutating menace that moves back and forth, reaches out again and again until it’s impalpable limbs clutch at all creatures living in front of it. “Level Up” is the morning after the disaster, aimlessly wandering piano notes floating on sea foam drown any hope left, until the inevitable end of mankind manifests with the nautical 20-minute growl of the haunting and ghostly "Resident Sea”. It’s the final night.
DEUTSCH:
Während Leonard Donats Debütalbum „Deer Traps“ (2017) an der Schwelle zwischen Stadt und Natur operierte und neblige wie knisternde Schleier über geloopte klassische Instrumente legte, ist der Nachfolger der Soundtrack für die globale Apokalypse, den steigenden Meeresspiegel und seine Nachwirkungen.
Der Hörer taucht tief ein in den Kosmos von „Tremors Today“, das mit verwaschenen Drones, verstimmten Klavieren und sich langsam drehenden Sound eine angsteinflößende, aber auch seltsam beruhigende Decke aus Klang und Rauschen erzeugt. Die kargen Klavier-Arpeggios von „Incoming Anomaly“ sind ein Vorbote dessen, was kommen wird, aber sie sind der massiven Flut hoffnungslos unterlegen, die mit dem 15-minütigen „Washing Over“ folgt. Eine mutierende Bedrohung, die sich vor und zurück bewegt, dabei immer wieder nach etwas zu greifen scheint, bis seine unmerklichen Gliedmaßen alles Lebende verschlingen. „Level Up“ ist der Morgen nach der Katastrophe, ziellos umherschweifende Klaviernoten, die auf Meeresschaum treiben, ertränken jedoch jede Hoffnung, bis sich das unvermeidliche Ende der Menschheit mit dem nautischen Knurren des eindringlichen und gespenstischen 20-Minüters „Resident Sea“ manifestiert. Es ist die finale Nacht.
credits
released February 24, 2023
All music written and performed by Alexander Leonard Donat
Artwork by Alexander Leonard Donat
Superb album, I loved every second of it. It's not easy to find an ambient album which will capture your attention in an era in which thousands of them are published every day, but Decyaing Spheres releases are always on spot. Wonderful stuff, highly recommended. saimonix
As the name implies, there’s something wonderfully spooky about this Philly band—shoegaze with a haunting undercurrent. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 27, 2023
