MTUA - La Timidité des cimes

 

Released: February 28

La Timidité des cimes plays on a rather peculiar and esoteric premise regarding the ability of trees within the same species to maintain distance between their branches. I was not aware of this phenomenon, as I am sure many other listeners may not be, but listening a second time around with this in mind certainly changed my perspective. What was previously a somewhat swirling feeling when listening suddenly became something entirely different. They surround sounding nature of the album makes quite a bit more sense now, as I can imagine the branches all around in a rather oblique-looking forest. 

The album has us exploring these odd nature-scapes over the course of five varied tracks. The opening tracks is among the the most simple and sparse feeling on the album, consistently of what seems like a single track but I can’t be sure. Its soft and sometimes piercing drone is transfixing and bright, as if the sun was poking through the considerately spaced branches and onto my face. The other tracks here seem to be a bit more layered but still maintain this sense of surrounding the listener. There’s really just something about the way in which the tones are arranged that make it feel much more present then the individual sounds may be by themselves. 

My favorite track of this experience is surprisingly the finale, “Save the bees, plant more trees, clean the seas, and punch nazis.” And not just for the clever name either. Being the longest track, it craftily creates a hypnotic motif and soft buzzing drones stack with a tonal element that I can’t quite put my finger on and these almost electric hits penetrate the haze intermittently. It stands in contrast to the previous tracks on the album, being much more layered and feeling like a natural progression of the theme. Quite spectacular in my opinion.

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