Nickolas Mohanna - Speaker Rotations

 

Released: March 7 

Speaker Rotations is a rather descriptive title for this album as it feels somewhat unbalanced in a number of parts, but also keeps this feeling of constant motion quite well. From the very first track, you can hear as the sound weighs heavy on one side and then slowly moves to the other side as it drags all of the weight with it. It eventually does balance out in some way, but “Future Light Cone” continues to give the impression of a dizzying but still surprisingly organized mess. The motif of rotation and swirling stays present throughout the rest of the runtime, but it manifests itself to varying degrees with some tracks feeling more lopsided than others. 

A big strength for the album, and one that prevents the swirling nature of the album from spiraling into madness, is the careful and deft layering in each track. “Night Horses” provides a concrete example here as the consistent bass line in the back keeps a centered feeling even through it also does a considerable amount of movement on its own. But the relative uniformity of it provides a scaffold from which the other odd pieces of the track branch out into the further reaches of the soundscape. That is, until it falls apart closer to the end, which leads the ancillary pieces into a spaced out and more randomized array, which inadvertently but comfortably drift into the next track,” Hollow in the Rock.”

Now, with all these layers, you may think that there are all manner of complex synths and instruments. But the every layer in the album comes from trombone, guitar, and piano. I’m really unsure of how all these layers come about from three rather straightforward instruments, but the layering and feedback between all three is truly remarkable. There’s plenty of case where each piece is obvious, such as the racing keys of “Past Light Cone.” But there’s infinitely more in which the differences  each become near indiscernible and you simply get lost in the swells.