Tell Me What You Know About Death - WH;STLE AT MY KNEE

 Released: October 14

On his first release of the year, experimental artist Dan Maguleanu (as his moniker tell me what you know about death) concocts a rather disquieting and odd long form piece that saunters about into various textures and themes seamlessly. If feels rather foreboding and airy as it begins, swooshing into the foreground in a subtle but determinate manner. But once this soft airy sound play becomes established, that when the odd sounds start to come in with soft pings and additional atmospherics, as well as the eventual shift into the next part. 

The piece is divided loosely into what sounded to me like five or six distinct parts. After the initial introduction, the mood turns into something resembling a heavy industrial influence, not like the genre but rather harsh mechanical sounds. This makes for one of my favorite parts as it shifts back quickly into a slurried mess of sounds that warp and wind their way through the soundscape until reverting back into something more distinctly ambient. 

As the piece continues, the appearance of familiar found sounds becomes more apparent as we hear water dribbling onto hard surfaces and the whir of aging machinery accompanies it. It all combines into a bizarre soundscape that consists mainly of strange and alien sounds that trail each other into an aural void. I enjoyed the ride but even by the end I didn’t know where exactly it took me. But the unique sound design and the free-form structure of the piece is engaging, if not also a bit confusing. It resembles moments in some of my favorite games, with the moment in the original Half-Life coming to mind in which the main character finds himself being sucked into a strange and alien world after navigating the rapidly decay research facility. It hits this note extremely well.