dynamo - Lift

Released: April 28

 Abstract and ambient, dynamo's newest album on Xtleyon Records is textually varied and a bit conceptually vague. The latter of this is by no means a deficiency, rather it provides quite a bit of room for the listener to connect their own dots and see where this album takes them mentally. For me, I found myself in a place both relaxing and invigorating as the various sounds intertwined with one another in intriguing ways. Especially since much of the album feels rather ambient overall but much more experimental from track to track. The sounds that develop and evolve over the course of a single track are processed in such complex ways that it nothing ever feels static for more than a handful of moments. Although, some of those moments hit more poignantly than others for sure. 

While all fourteen tracks on this album have something wonderful to offer, I'd like to just point to a few of my favorites. Despite being among the shorter tracks, "Waste" immediately caught my attention. Primarily because of the overall manipulation of the string (or pad, not entirely sure) sound that is continually wrapped up in a strange stutter that whips from side to side in the stereo image, giving the sensation of some kind of windstorm or other atmospheric phenomena that do not allow the track or its listener to rest. Then there is "Omissa Oloisaan," a much more slow moving track that takes its time to bring in it's layers subtly, even though it is only about two and a half minutes long itself. There is strange and haunting tone throughout the track that at time comes across as a lonely piano and other times emulating something more pad like. I can't really tell if it is the same sound or not, but it feels so elusive in the mix that it compelled me to chase it, even if it wasn't where I was looking.    

I found myself rather drawn to the shorter tracks here, but not to the detriment of the longer ones. I think it was their apparent purpose in context that I quite liked about them. This is because they seem to be a bit more stripped back in their layering with more emphasis on the manipulation of the sounds. It works fantastically especially in the case of the aforementioned "Waste" as a lead-in to "Colliding (Seas)." The intense back and forth tweaking of the sound leads us into this track in which we are enveloped in soothing waves of pads and an unusually harsh ending that makes use of line feedback and buzz to recreate something approximate to what was heard on "Waste."