Have you heard of Alora Crucible? Well, you’re in luck, if you haven’t, I already talked here, about their debut which was released three years ago. That should give you a bit of background in regards to what we’re dealing with. Just in case you don’t feel like doing all the extra reading today though, in short, Alora Crucible is another one of Toby Driver‘s endlessly creative outlets, where he is joined by outstanding musicians to create something unique. Oak Lace Apparition continues the generally ambiental direction of Thymiamatascension, though, emphasizing a different kind of soundscape and mood.
As it behooves a work of this nature, Oak Lace Apparition skirts the borders of the preternatural, while meandering into the liminal hemisphere of a thaumaturgic nebula. It traverses a vast expanse of nuance throughout this principal emotion that’s being explored. It’s like you pick up something, anything really, and just pop it under the microscope. No detail goes unseen. Similarly, the record found some kind of empyrean artifact and took it apart, fawning and marveling over every minutiae with reverence and patience.
I think it becomes a very dull and unrewarding experience if you oppose its flow and impose your own trajectory. It’s a sonic experience that needs to be given the proper space to unfurl. Whether it’s high up in the ethereal firmament, or down in the endless emerald thicket, I wouldn’t be able to pin down where the album takes me, it’s in a thousand different places. Sometimes separately, sometimes all at once. It goes everywhere, but also nowhere. It’s ever-shifting in this sense, never really illustrating the same thing twice, despite texturally committing to probe a single oddly specific area.
Circling around to arrive at aspects, which are more palatable and down to earth, I would say that while the record seems to lack structure in a more traditional sense, it makes up for this with the splendid qualities of the sonic textures showcased alongside the moods they voice. I’d also say that this aspect, along with the excellent production are really the main pillars which carry this musical experience. There’s nothing else going for it. That’s not a bad thing though. I’m just stating the facts as I see them. If you want something super intricate and complex, this is not for you.
Although, there’s another thing to mention alongside all of the above. I think that the album also has a great drive characteristic. At a mental and emotional level, there’s a high motricity in me as a listener when exposed to this. It provokes me to imagine all sorts of things as well as feel a wide variety of things. It’s not really often, come to think about it, that a beautiful album, no matter how well put together, will illicit this kind of creative reaction, so to speak. I think that’s quite refreshing.
It can also just work as a kind of record to put on repeat, lie down in the grass, stare up to the stars, and just vibe. No strings attached. That’s cool too. To be perfectly honest, I would have stopped after the second paragraph, because the rest feels a tad superfluous, at least in the context of this album. Alora Crucible isn’t a kind of project that needs too many words to bring you near it. It’s sure to ensnare you with its tunes the moment it starts telling its story. Oak Lace Apparition is no exception to that and I have to say, besides meeting and surpassing my already high expectations, it also made me want to keep things short a.k.a. shut up and enjoy. I encourage you to do the same.
