[Reviewed by Peter Marks]
Tempting as it might be to just write this off as music exclusively created in and for abandoned spaces, don’t. For fifteen years now I’ve been listening to Ryby and Sauron do what they do and the only constant is a low tempo. Each release shows more of their technical prowess in addition to opening up fields of perception in the mind you had no idea were there; I must admit that their last album ‘Room 78’ had me a little worried because they appeared to be getting infected by the whims and influences of others.
Disharmony work best alone.
It is this kind of singular focus which brings us to ‘Fragments of Time’, one which seems to pick right up where ‘Malignant Shields’ left off all those albums back. Their style is such that the further into the darkness you venture they more you will be able to discern, “Memorized Skin” is a prime example of how finely they have honed the creative blade. With it’s heady pauses, unremitting atmosphere, lumbering beat and interlocking chains of melodic notes it might have wound up being a pretty instrumental but Ryby’s vocals jab into it’s serenity to remind whoever is listening that this is no ordinary track.
Precisely just how they know when their charges are done will remain a mystery but there can be no question that they’re masters of dark electronic craft; the dialog samples which carry a few of the pieces tell tales of betrayal even before any words come from the band and even when they merely accent what is going on their selection is hardly happenstance. What’s more, there is an intuition between the two members of this outfit which clearly informs their sound choices.
The contrasting elements alone in any of the connecting segments on here ought to make anyone sit up and take notice but that’s the thing: they, along with the roster on the label which Ryby runs remain well under the radar. Surprising, really, as what has been issued absolutely lives up to the name Aliens Production.
Disharmony’s slowly evolving auditory nightmares and dystopian depictions of the world around them continue to captivate; while their side-projects Oxyd and Headdreamer operate in calmer and more relaxed settings, albums like ‘Fragments of Time’ are complex and claustrophobic sagas which leave pleasure and contentment dead on the side of the road for the crows to pick at. The bruised and bloodied underside of our technological wonderland is where they reside; from within billowing clouds of choking chemical smoke what is captured are not so much recordings… as residue.
Disharmony – Fragments of Time
Aliens Production, AP 39
CD/Digital 2016
Santa Sangre 