Those Mountains - Redefenition Of Void II

 

Released: October 15 

Hailing from Oslo, Those Mountains is the brainchild of Lars Lervik and a project that explores novel song structures and utilizes a lo-fi aesthetic. Redefenition of Void II is actually the follow-up to the first volume which dropped earlier this year in April. While it shares some similarities sonically, it eschews completely the presence of any vocals (prominent on the previous volume) and opts to go all in on an instrumental experience, fully exploring the possibilities of sound and structure with oddball rhythms played out by luxuriant drums and all manner of melodic content. 

The fascinating part of this album is the genre fusion that occurs throughout its short runtime. In the opening track alone, "Those Thoughts Belong to Flowers," we get a couple of unexpected things. Though it starts out sparse and a bit unrecognizable, about halfway through we get a piano line that feels quite reminiscent of the days gone by of house music with quick stab-like chords. It is soon joined by a lower energy monophonic synth sound that fundamentally changes the character of he track. Lervik pulls another bit of musical trickery later with "It Shouldn't Be That Hard," a track that starts out a bit disjointed and jerky, but then slowly transforms into a DnB-inflected ambient track with a quick rhythm. But what is really interesting here is that this quick rhythm seems to support the mellow vibes that the synthwork is giving without upending it in any way. We even get a fun bit of digitized noise near the end that just adds to the mellow madness. All this variation makes for a rather captivating listen that takes you in multiple directions all at once.