 |
 click here if you are having troubles navigating on our site |
|
click here if you are having troubles navigating on our site |
 |
Goddakk
- n°2
MP3 Album 2011 | Silber 098 6 tracks, 35 minutes $5 (320 kbps, ~66 megs) :
Listen to the track A Snowy Walk Home
track listing:
|
|||
|
Reviews: This is a side-project of one Martin Newman, also known as the guitarist for Boston-based Silber recording act Plumerai. With Goddakk, he concentrates on instrumental music and put out his first outing under that name with the contribution of a track titled “Sounds Like Christmas” on the Silber X-mas 2000 compilation cd-R (released in 2000...just to make that point well understood). Goddakk's first full-length (6 tracks, duration 46 minutes) Monument To A Broken Age wasreleased on cd-R by Silber in 2006, and apparently got such labeling as Industrial Shoegaze, Aggressive Ambient, and Cinematic Post-Rock. Supposedly (or at least so announced) played on the guitar, I nevertheless discern some piano play on the album's 13-minute track (I'm afraid I cannot tell you the title, as I was not given that, and was quite unable to find it – possibly more fuck-up from the side of the editor-in-chief, I guess)...and I have some problems believing the ensuing (and with a 2:10 length also much shorter) track would not have any keyboards (or synths) in it either. As for some of the wackiness on the other tracks, I'm quite willing one can produce such sounds with effect pedals (I mean, I've been there myself, so I know and understand that much). Nice also is that Martin still incorporates some ethereal guitar into his music, diverging from other musicians in the field by incorporating Ambient noise and repetitive loops into actual song structures. As for the experiments from former reviewers to try and put Goddakk music into a certain “category”, I can only say that some of 'em went a bit too obvious. “Industrial Shoegazer”? That's so obviously coming from someone wanting to make a link to Martin's musical expression in his “normal” band! Aggressive Ambient? If that ain't a contradiction in terms! Cinematic Post-Rock? Well, that leaves the best an open-ended terminology I heard so far. I'll even use it myself, but with the necessary expansion. So, how does “Cinematic Post-Rock with Ambient and occasional Soft-Industrial influences sound to you? You can listen to a song off each of Goddakk's cd-R albums on the artist's page at the label's website (and there's samples to be savoured off the rest of the debut album at cdbaby.com. Again, top “Best Albums Of 2011”-list material here! ~ Concrete Web Martin Newman’s Goddak project picks up where his last album left off, with N◦2 providing more ambient post-industrial soundscapes to lose yourself in. ‘A Snowy Walk Home’s canny use of its title helps bring out the air of ominous foreboding inherent in the looped guitar and distortion and sets expectations high from the offset of the audible journey to follow -‘Apples and Lilies’ is subsequent in a similarly mesmerising composition. Meditative and sombre, ‘An Hour of God’ echoes with desolation and emotion equally throughout its thirteen minute duration while ‘Sneguckka’ comes in much shorter but still with all the sober minutiae of its longer neighbour. A far cry from Newman’s more musical project Plumerai (Check them out!), N◦2 seethes with experimental ideation of a darker and more serious nature and for this concept alone deserves the global adoration of gloomy souls like myself. ~ Michael Byrne, Left Hip Disponibile in download sul sito della Silber Records, etichetta specializzata in drone e dark ambient ormai da più di un decennio, "N° 2" - come poco fantasiosamente indica il titolo - è il secondo lavoro di Goddak. Dietro questo progetto si cela l'artista statunitense Martin Newman, che descrive la sua musica come"industrial shoegaze". Interessante definizione per un originale connubio di distorsioni abrasive e suoni romantici e stralunati, sbiaditi come una vecchia cartolina: un contrasto che non manca di catturare l'orecchio, trasportandolo in atmosfere acquatiche e ovattate quando prevale la tendenza onirica - come in "An Hour Of God" - oppure torturandolo con droniche digressioni al vetriolo dove prevale l'istinto noise - si veda l'iniziale e distruttiva "A Snowy Walk Home". Ma forse è proprio quando il folle musicista riesce a raggiungere un sorprendente equilibrio (cosa che accade ad esempio in "Apples And Lilies", in cui s'incontrano sprazzi orientaleggianti e confusi che ricordano lontanamente "Tomorrow Never Knows" dei Beatles e riff noise e decisamente industriali) che il fruitore riesce davvero a intravedere l'afflato cinematografico, sognante e avvincente del lavoro di Goddak. La parola "Goddak" in svedese significa "buongiorno", ma ascoltando la rumorosità inquietante di "Sneguchka" e "The Road North" l'aria si fa soffocante e tetra, in netto contrasto con la positività con cui Newman, forse sarcasticamente, ha deciso di denominare il suo progetto. Chiude l'album la brevissima "In The Open", che distende i nervi con sonorità spaziali e trame assopite ed eteree, ancora una volta inframezzate da un incedere noise che si fa quasi epico: un connubio ben calibrato e seducente dalle romantiche e subacquee venature trip-hop che non mancherà di incantare gli estimatori di queste atmosfere. ~ Alone Music |
