Title: Larva
Artist: Oxyd
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: November 2007
Label: Aliens Productions
Album Review
The two masterminds behind this project might be familiar to some of you already. The two protagonists Lord Sauron and Ryby from the project DISHARMONY founded OXYD as a purely instrumental approach for their fascination for complex and emotional electronic music and released their second full-length ‘Larva’ on their own label Aliens Productions again last November.
The music OXYD creates is not about following current trends in the electronic music genre to get more and more danceable and club-friendly every day. It’s about taking the listener on a journey, about blending beauty and complexity to one single floating entity and I have to admit that they’ve accomplished that goal very well on ‘Larva’. Every single track opens the doors to another small sonic microcosm, starting with the opener ‘From the Outside’ introducing us to a thunderstorm with heavy rain, suddenly getting permeated y distant male choirs and broken by some stuttering beats afterwards, but the ultimate highlight of the song for me is the wonderful piano line in the middle of the track. The next track ‘Traveller’ follows right in its footsteps, piling up multiple melodic layers and orchestral elements to an extremely dense atmosphere, which is underlined with smooth, floating drum patterns.
The track ‘Unborn’ uses a movie speech sample at the beginning, where a guy proudly explains the advantages of a new facility, where they will be able to make psychological and physiological corrections to artificial human assets. Sounds lie the nope too distant future and a scary one if you ask me. I would have expected the title to opt for a harsher tone, but it stays in lower tempo regions all the time, while the following tracks ‘Transmission’ brings the expected change, driven by complex and cold rhythmical constructions and ‘Suspiria’ follows that route in a more moderated form and with smoother ambient textures, before ‘Carbon’ slows it down to almost zero. Gentle, dropping beats under a sky of beautiful choirs and pads. Another mention-worthy track is ‘The Frozen Moon’ which actually leads you to believe to fly over the surface of such a celestial body with its rough and icy. The album finishes off with the track ‘From the Inside’, a virtually classic end with spherical keys, (synth) clarinet and choirs.
I’m happy that I’ve had the chance to discover that project as what they’ve created with ‘Larva’ is nothing short than a sonic journey through foreign worlds and everyone who likes to get carried away by fantastic ambient music with complex beats should take a listen.
Tracklist
01. From the Outside – 3:25
02. Traveller – 6:31
03. Transformations – 3:24
04. Unborn – 4:29
05. Transmission – 4:43
06. Suspiria – 3:57
07. Carbon – 3:04
08. Voices of Sand – 4:10
09. Dune – 4:45
10. Sunlights – 5:12
11. The Frozen Moon – 5:41
12. Sculptures – 7:32
13. From the Inside – 3:24
Line-up
Ryby
Lord Sauron
Website
http://www.oxyd.aliens.sk/ / http://www.myspace.com/projectoxyd
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 9
Sound: 9
Extras: -
Total: 9
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