Ryan Huber - Witching Hour

 

Released: July 20

Ryan Huber (aka RL Huber) has a rather long discography of cinematic ambient music. So I was a bit pleasantly surprised when I received this EP and heard some rather extensive percussion. Compared to previous works “Witching Hour” is intensely rhythmic while still maintaining that hypnotic feeling present in his more cinematic stuff. What’s more interesting is how much of a background role that pads and leads take throughout the album appearing with rarity and always overshadowed by the pulsing rhythms. For most of the album, we are treated to tense and energetic beats that convey the same sense of shadowy darkness that can be heard in much of his other works. It’s not dance music by any stretch but the intensity of movement and energy is there, pushing out a minimalistic set of sounds with complex results. 

The only two real exceptions to this come on “Turn of Phrase” and “Tailspin,” the former of which is neither rhythmically or harmonically driven, instead opting to remain rather amorphous and undefined. It is the sonic equivalent of a grey goo that squirms inside your ear. Not unpleasant, but it is a welcome contrast from the pounding rhythms that feels well placed and timed. The latter of these two is similar, but it provides an ending to this brief but heavy EP that feels as though it calls back to his more cinematic works while embracing the formless aesthetic of its counterpart on the album. These two pieces serve as kind of sonic bookends representing the halfway point and the end and both provide these wonderful little breaks from the percussive imitator of the rest of the album.