Coming close to the end of the year, so this may be the last review before the calendar turns over.
The Virgin Birth by Bird Drugs and Ut Mutem is a 4-track album. The sound is ambient with a bit of noise thrown in.
The first two tracks are from Bird Drugs. Tiny Hands starts off with a low end drone. It has an almost chant quality to it. The song slowly morphs over its 9 minutes. At one point it sounds like a church organ being heard through the plumbing if an old church, and it slowly swirls and evolves as the drone progresses with little noises here and there. A Child! A Child! Rejoice! starts with what sounds like you’re in the boiler room of some building and there is someone talking very far in the distance from some cavern. Not long in, noise is added. The drone gets mildly harsh, and this sort of lazer gun sound starts and is sporadic. Am I listening to some old video game glitch out? Next thing I now, the brightness shines through to break into a great ambient and ethereal passage. The way both of these songs morph over time is spot on. For my tastes, it’s all about creating that drone and taking it somewhere else in a way that you won’t notice unless you’re really listening.
Ut Mutem provides the closing tracks. Lord of Misrule opens with a muted synth sound, kind of that ‘looking to the heavens’ thing, if that makes any sense. It’s a good transition from the previous track, and the two artists appear to be on the same wavelength. As the song unfolds, more sound and noise gets added to the mix. Like there is someone or something trying to be heard, or it’s birds off in the distance, almost like seagulls. The track gets thicker as it runs through the plus 12 minutes of ambience, and in the last 2 minutes speeds up slightly as it becomes tape machine fodder. I dig the disruption at the end like that. Drag you along and prep you for the last song. Even the trees bowed down to Mary the Virgin closes the album. Muffled angelic singing or chanting starts off as drone and noise is added. Is this the sound the trees make as Mary approaches? The internal twisting of fibers amplified, maybe? The singing fades as the electric fiber sound tries to take over. The voice of Mary, I assume, chimes in to take the forefront as interpreted by the electric sounding fibers of the trees.
I enjoyed this listen, great ambient drones that keep you engaged with subtle additions of noise and nicely executed transitions between songs and internally in them too.
slow draw is... 