Style: Experimental Black Metal, Free Jazz, “World” Music (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Neptunian Maximalism
Review by: Cooper
Country: Japan
Release date: 4 August, 2023
Oftentimes, when one is tasked with describing their own music, promises are made that are rarely kept. Every day, I read Bandcamp album descriptions promising me nirvana if I were to just listen to these few songs, yet I still suffer in this mortal world. So when an album refers to itself as “an enigmatic and playfully formulaic quandary of deconstructed, visionary counter-music reminding us a simple concept: that reality is dictated by perception” and “an exploration of the notions of self-reflection, intuition, phobia, luck, and failure in the context of the evil eye, its historical, cultural, physical and metaphysical meanings, as well as its psychological effects, carefully unraveled and revealed,” it’s fair to understand why I may be a bit skeptical; after all, those sound more like the abstract for someone’s thesis than it does an album description. And yet, despite how doubtful I may have been of the promises made by the album’s description, here I sit, wonderstruck, by the magnitude of what was achieved on Skopofoboexoskelett, the fourth EP from 夢遊病者 (pronounced “Mèngyóu bìng zhě” and Chinese for sleepwalker).
Within the first moments of opening track “Mirrors Turned Inward”, 夢遊病者 makes it abundantly clear what sort of audio experience you’ve gotten yourself into. After a brief industrial soundscape, you are submerged into the dark and murky waters of amorphous free jazz-esque guitar and drum work, only able to come up for air on the rare occasion that the instruments lock into a perceptible rhythm, orienting you beneath the dark surface. But even when the song forms into rhythmic normality, its harmonic content is still jarring enough to always leave you uneasy; you may now be treading water, but something still lurks beneath the surface. Slowly though, “Mirrors Turned Inward” moves closer to the realm of what most may refer to as music, jagged guitar motifs blooming open and saxophone entering to bring the song to its more melodically driven conclusion. After just the first song, Skopofoboexoskelett’s goal of unraveling the nature of music itself is coming to fruition with its deeply opposing elements that only work when in conjunction. Like a chef slaughtering a cow in front of his guests before feeding them a burger, it is as though the EP is capturing the essence of anti-music in its entirety by not only showing us music’s deconstruction, but by then showing us how intensely beautiful music can simply be.
“Silesian Fur Coat”, track two, begins with the incredibly addictive musical texture that is the combination of swampy slide guitar, dark, pounding, broody bass, and reverb laden “world” instruments such as the ney, the qanun, and the nyckelharpa – instruments I have never once heard before – and then, using that initial texture as clay, sculpts the rest of the song, slowly adding in layers of strings and inevitably cutting away all unnecessary elements until the song reaches its glorious melodic climax, a climax able to ring so purely only juxtaposed against the squall that preceded it. The next track, “The Eagle Flies”, despite being the shortest song on Skopofoboexoskelett at just 3 minutes, delivers a musical journey of untold length; the use of didgeridoo, worldly percussion, and sleigh bells especially gave the song an exotic and airy texture, a reprieve from the darker tones present elsewhere.
When closing track, “The Bad Luck That Saved You From Worse Luck” finally begins, its more predictable patterns may be surprising after the chaos that came prior, but do not be mistaken; something evil dwells here, too. For after a tasteful guitar solo with an even tastier cello accompaniment, the song turns on its heels as blisteringly distorted guitars and vocals enter to seemingly destroy the song’s established groove only for everything to shift once again, lurching forward into a much quicker pace. It really is stellar songwriting. From here, the tension and chaos build up to the point of no return only to give way to a climax of strings and guitar that will almost certainly go down as the most beautiful musical moment I’ll hear all year.
With Skopofoboexoskelett, 夢遊病者 have left me craving more. The music on display here is powerful and the more I listen and the more I ponder, the more meaningful it seems to become, as though its memory is more poignant than its presence. The fact that I am now pondering the nature of music itself means that this album has more than achieved its desired effect on me and that I will surely return to this for years to come. In 25 minutes, 夢遊病者 have revealed to me more about than the nature of music than countless hours of listening prior, and although I may not be able to articulate it, as though it were something deep and instinctual, I feel its importance. If you have your doubts, open your mind and see for yourself.
Recommended tracks: Listen to it all! It’s only 25 minutes!
You may also like: Salqiu, Imperial Triumphant, A.M.E.N.
Final verdict: 10/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube
Label: Sentient Ruin Laboratories – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
夢遊病者 is:
– PBV (fretted and fretless acoustic and electric guitars, vocals, dulcimer, harmonica, effects, field recording)
– NN (fretted and fretless basses, xylophone, prepared piano, vocals)
– KJM (drums, percussion, objects, polivoks, vocals)
Guests include:
– EB (saxophone)
– IK (ney)
– SH (qanun)
– WY (didgeridoo)
– DSV (nyckelharpa)
– EJ (harmonium, harp)
– SA (cello)
– AN (bassoon)
– DTM (vocals)
– The Plovdiv PVVP Choir (vocals)
– DW (spoken word)
– H/TS (spoken word)
– KK (translation to Polish)
– BB (German translation consult)
– DA (vocals)
– RR (vocals)
– MA (vocals)
– RA (vocals)
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