Silent Whale Becomes A° Dream - North EP
4840165 Records DK
French Post-Rock outfit, Silent Whale Becomes a Dream(what a name), introduce themselves to 2023 with the 'North' EP. The North EP is an aqueous and, at times, cavernous cacophony of seering highs and melancholic lows.
In usual post-rock fashion the material takes its time to get where its going; it arrives by means of peaks and valleys, crescendos and calm, unrest and resolution. You'll find beautiful sounds and obscure uses of instrumentation along the way, not obscure in the sense that they’re using them in the wrong way, but they just have a unique approach to the sounds that they get out of them. It's refreshing in its own right. The band see beyond what music can be - it's a life-form in itself, a representation of the unspeakable. The drummer plays straight forward stuff, but it never fails to give a sense of direction to the material. As you'd expect, it's the driving force behind the swaying soundscapes that the band produce.
Cinematic in a strange way, the band seem to have a knack for creating surreal spaces to explore. Something about it feels 'off', but this feeling gives it an edge at the same time - undertones of knowing that the end is nigh lingers and hangs like rotten fruit, the mold and spores bloom as the days go by. A menacing miasma is hovering overhead. The storm will be here soon. Preparing for its arrival may be a waste of time - the forecast looks unfavourable.
Post-rock tends to get the cinematic treatment as the material often follow the ups and downs of story-telling - the aforementioned crescendo and calm. Silent Whale Becomes a Dream fit right into this world - if they haven't been called upon to score a film, their time is coming.
