It is Monday. If we unpack that sentence for many people, Monday has connotations of monotony, the stress of returning to work after too brief time off, the reset of the struggle and consuming time transactions we make to survive. Whatever moments of joy and creativity that may have been found over the weekend are whisked away by the relentless cycle of labor, news of a collapsing world, deep questions of morality and conscience forever interrupted by menial tasks and advertisements.
So, what better day to premiere some harrowing dark ambient/drone music from OLOMUHD? The Absurd Silence Of A Muted World is a single track, full album that offers a bleak, yet resilient soundtrack to the ceaseless ennui of an indifferent world, officially releasing on Friday, March 29 via Cyclic Law, but you can hear the whole piece right now. Listen below!
Initiated at the beginning of the year 2022, OLOMUHD is a shared vision bringing together multi-instrumentalists Samuel Vaney (Cortez, Muhd, Fargue) and long time collaborator Loïc Grobety (OLO, Convulsif). Sharing a common passion for abrasive textures, deconstructed rhythms, enveloping and dense layers, this album, presented as a single track, is a distinct entity, an ageless and lush exploration, at times contemplative and airy, at times impetuous and massive. It is the result of a thoughtful yet instinctive composition process.
The duo also enlisted drummer Michael Anklin, who deftly adds percussive elements without overpowering the majesty of the music. There is a lot to unpack in one track over forty minutes, especially when the subject matter and scope are as complex and contemplative as OLOMUHD have produced, but here is a brief synopsis.
Powerful mechanical, distorted beats at a glacial pace betray a gentle rising of uneasy synth ambience. Pink noise ushers in a calm, eerie drone. Arhythmic beats return as a delicate balance of peace is threatened by the rising intensity and volume. The off kilter percussion locks in driving chord progressions of haunted pipe organ sounds. As this passage fades, we return to a minimalist drone and a spoken word piece by Hemlock Smith about human kindness that is far from uplifting unless you share the same go-for-broke optimism from the bottom of nihilism that I do. It is like David Foster Wallace channeling a heavier dose of William S. Burroughs over Kurt Vonnegut.
This is the perfect kind of rant for music so indebted to the crushing feeling of hopelessness that arises amongst the false hope pedaled by so many people who risk a loss of power should their hope sales tactics fail. The music turns to a drone/doom intensity, fitting for a Sunn O))) track. The second guest vocalist Mütterlein arrives, delivering a slow, ritualistic sermon and the return of the dense rhythmic sounds that opened the album. The track fades away into the cursed ether.
There is a cinematic quality to The Absurd Silence Of A Muted World. Once the last notes faded, I was left with serious contemplations about ethics and the world at large. It is like an art-house film leaves you without a sense of resolution, but still a sense of having experienced something grand. This album satisfies my weirdo tastes, intense moments, slow building crescendos, philosophical ponderings, drone metal atmospherics at the end. This is something to behold, a profound effort in modern composition art that seeks to provide less absurdity and unmute our minds.
If you wish to support the artist and music, you can preorder The Absurd Silence Of A Muted World digitally or physically on CD through Cyclic Law‘s Bandcamp.
