CD Review: Black Glass - Holy Rain

Artist: Black Glass
Title: Holy Rain
Genre: Trip Hop/ Dark Ambient
Release Date: 6th February 2011
Label: Ahead Records

Album Review

BLACK GLASS is a Polish project marrying Trip-Hop with Dark Ambient, founded in 2000. They released five albums: ‘Inside’ (2000), ‘Sapphiro Crimes’ (2002), ‘Mirranda’ (2004), ‘Morphine’ EP (2007) and with ‘Holy Rain’ (2011) as the ending chapter. ‘Holy Rain’ has taken five years to record and has already been out for a year. It comprises of two parts, where the second part also has some guest appearances (such as Andrea Schroeder, German vocalist, India Czajkowska, Polish vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. Also DJ Kostek, legendary polish DJ, Tim Kruskamp, American musician who plays guitar and bass, She.xist, who is American trip-hop vocalist, M ya, Polish vocalist and Peter 'Glaca' Mohamed, legendary Polish musician and performer, singer and leader in bands like Sweet Noise or My Riot). The project claims to be influenced by vintage sound and so you’ll get the 100% analogue experience, within a physical release the band wanted to introduce a feeling as if you were listening to a vinyl.

‘Holy Rain’ appears to be minimalist, no thickly laid out atmospheres, but they are containing a certain sense of complexity nevertheless. One prevailing feeling from the atmosphere that stroke me and engulfed me within its first part was a sense of ennui, a frozen lake during a misty winter morning, and no sense of Gothic leanings as to E.A. Poe or H.P. Lovecraft as is at times encountered in the genre of Dark Ambient, though some of the songs hold an eeriness (i.e. Lost Tape No.2). However, a prevailing sense of melancholy and fragility of a psyche pervades it especially as it is underlined by the lyrics. That frozen lake feeling I spoke earlier about is particularly evoked by the texture and “colour” – or mood - of the female vocal. The male vocal when it comes (not very often) is especially outstanding in the first ‘Suffering’, which also has a wonderful sound of rain, and its appearance underlines the tremendous mood of delicate melancholy, which however does not stand for just a feeling, but a prevalent characteristic of the being that emerges to express itself through the music. It also becomes apparent that the album is better absorbed slowly and by going over it more than once.

The trajectory of experience doesn’t stay only on one level, for example, in ‘Expired Expectations’ a play of regrets seemed to be pulling on me beautifully – and so on, it feels that each listener will find what is reflected and or echoing within them. The vintage sound comes best in ‘Resonating pt.I’, where it brings me somewhat to my memory of reading Jerzy Kosiński’s ‘The Painted Bird’, the weird, sad and funereal violins with their distorted harmony and the background of stormy weather, a sense of foreboding and indeed the other parts of the said song do follow on this feeling throughout the double album. In the second part of it, the feeling of ennui is followed with a sense of restlessness, which underlines a sense of existential unease in its debris, with some best moments coming in ‘Silent Wounds’. This song is remarkable with its beautiful and expressive vocal entwined with gorgeous guitar work and its delicately evocative mood that cannot fail to ensnare the listener, or at least this one.  The few songs in their sub-parts created a layered experience, like a book in different chapters, which seemingly steer off to other dimensions only to create a different angles to the story told.

As a whole this album turned out to be an absorbing listen, a stimulating for one’s imagination – it can be said to be cinematic, its experimentation and uniqueness without being ostensible, a show-off, with a lot to take from this and as such - a richly rewarding album.


Tracklist

Line-up

Mirrorman - music, vocals, lyrics
Idden - vocals, lyrics, electric violin
Lolitha - vocals, lyrics


Websites

www.blackglass.pl


Cover Picture




Rating

Music: 7.5
Sound: 8
Total: 7.75 / 10