Hagai Izenberg - Hypothetical Moon

 Released: March 19

A hypothetical moon is one that is believed to exist in the solar system, but not been directly observed. This is the conceptual basis for this album and this starting point serves to bring some rather innovative combinations of sounds and motifs. Categorizing what this album is exactly is difficult, but the textures and movements present are pretty captivating from the start. The opener itself, “Discovery,” feel like it is multiple songs all in one four and a half-minute span as it changes quite frequently, bringing n a new and bizarre assortment with each change each time. It’s blending of abstract harsh noises that subside into gentle tonal bleeps and sustained sounds caught my ear almost immediately and quite honestly felt like indie cinematics to me. 

Further into the album, the field recording techniques really come into play, especially on “Subterrane.” The distinct sounds of muffled gurgling water are unmistakeable and play a huge part in most of the track. But then there’s some other rather strange things added in. But as that subsides, it takes on the large empty aesthetic as low hums take over and remove the physicality of the sound, making things feel quite unnatural. Many of the tracks seem to follow along with this structural idea of taking something that sounds as though it has a real presence in the physical world and then letting it be subsumed by something that feels wholly synthetic and unnatural. The subtext of this mechanic is not lost on me with the title of the album in consideration. 

The album as a whole really puts this uncanny synthetic and natural blend at the center. The unidentifiable sounds and noises here feel genuinely off-putting and unreal. Nothing about the album gives creepy or unsettling. But rather the best way to describe it is just uncanny, with this persistent demeanor of the real and the unreal colliding with each other over and over. The sound design is top notch and serves the theme well in this regard, especially when we have those moments of an altered acoustic instrument playing counter weight to something so strange as to be completely unidentifiable.