ninehertz

This is ambience created from a frame of other genres, not simply a have a go hero with pedals and a laptop. Colossloth hails from Leicester where it seems he has digested influences as diverse as power electronics and stark doom and black metal aesthetics to create this dark and gossamer-thin sound.

As brief as it is captivating, this three-track EP explores the peripheries of what makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end through listening to the raw and primal power of those aforementioned genres.

The swirling grind of these tracks bring to mind the glimpses of electronics you catch underneath the sounds of many modern black metal bands, Ackercocke being one prime example. Often hidden under clouds of treble and blastbeats, to let this kind of sound live and breathe is a pleasure. Like the stripped down feel of a soundtrack, this unfurls like a curled up leaf experiencing sunlight, the focus in extreme close up.

Use of strings alongside the rolling and sometimes unnerving electronic side reveals an organic side to proceedings too, meaning you are not left feeling digitally overwhelmed. Piano also weaves its way in like on Welcome Home Mourning Voyeur which combines the ivory with scratching and scraping metal samples, reminding me of nacht und nebel which is made solely using a cello and effects pedals. The scrape and squeak being two conflicting elements.

Feedback takes us into more metallic realms on closer Feint Hearted but not to overpowering levels. Instead it's a digital flock of calm, radio frequencies and reverbed chords stretch out with synth and manipulated field recordings and it's a bleak and calm end to proceedings.

Taken without context, this sounds wonderful enough, add in the element of a musical jigsaw and you have a piece of art here.