Slow, purely instrumental music is rarely ever my thing, but for some reason I am finding this recording really quite captivating, although I think I am going to struggle to articulate exactly why.

Briefly, for those of us who like quick categorisations, or even just to know whether or not to bother reading the rest of this review (twats), then I guess you’d put this in experimental, drone, post-rock kind of territory, to pinch the tags Ben Chatwin (for Talvihorros is basically just him) used on his own Bandcamp page.

For me a lot of experimental instrumental music just drifts into background noise far too quickly.  Partly I think this is because I have a woefully under-educated ear for this kind of thing, and partly I think it is also a real danger of the genre.  A bit like lo-fi garage rock bands substituting distortion for actual tunes, I think this kind of stuff has a similar danger of neglecting the basics of writing aurally engaging music in favour of simply ticking off the aesthetic touchstones of the genre itself.

Add that to the difficulties faced by someone like me, who has no real knowledge of this kind of music in the first place, and you can imagine how I have at times struggled to connect with bands making noises which I like, but which I have not quite managed to parlay into enjoyment of entire albums.

What makes this different, I am not sure.  The combination of ambient soundscapes, and rougher, scrapier, far less palatable drones works well for me.  Chatwin uses these really well to shift the emphasis from either lull to irritation, and this slow but palpable manipulation of emotions is probably why I like this as much as I do.

It’s the kind of album I could imagine Mrs. Toad dismissing as easy listening when I first put it on the record player, only to find an altogether less docile beast emerging within Beta, the second song.  The more aggressive sounds of drone and distortion are ones I am really enjoying in my pop music at the moment, so it makes sense that translating them to a slightly different style would still very much appeal to me.

Anyhow, this is an album which takes an undercurrent of unease and just twists it round and round inside your head for about forty minutes, giving you respite in places, but never letting you quite escape its clutches.  You never know if it’s going to save you or drown you, so you end up in this weird position where you’re not sure if the music is your friend or your enemy, and I think this fundamental combination of tease and threat is why I am finding it so compelling.

[Under normal circumstances I would share an mp3 at this point, but there aren't all that many on the album in the first place, and to give a whole song away seems a bit much, so you are going to have to make do with a Bandcamp embed on this occasion.  It is the whole album though, so you really can't complain.]

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