Fletina - Louise

 

Released: March 5

Scottish sound artist Fletina’s latest release is a long and meandering composition that feels rather dark and sinister. It’s not clear where all of the sounds are sourced from but the primary basis for it all is the sound of a barn burning consistently in the background. It has its ebbs and flows that occur in bizarrely cinematic ways, but these ebbs feel very intentional as attempt to tell a rather disquieting story. 

For the first half of this long cinematic track, there is a slow and consistent build. You can hear the dawdling vibrations of the track that feel like a running engine of some sort, There are these strange shuffling noises that occur intermittently as well, giving a sense of movement to all of this that feels unwieldy and odd. Footsteps, unfamiliar thumps, and rustles appear in odd places and are slowly subsumed by the growing sounds the vibrations and the fire. Sirens appear as the noises slowly grow in volume and the intensity of the situation grows. Then, all of a sudden, everything stops and we sit in just a few moments of silence. 

When the sound does reappear, it is all much quieter this time. Gentle sounds of ambient ground noise and vaguely watery sounds replace the previous intensity. It feels like the aftermath, link a moment that should be relieving but the knowledge of what came before still lingers over the area. I found it to be a fantastic twist on the story. Rather than just focusing on the action itself, we get that view of what happens afterwards. It is a rather wonderful end to this wordless short story.