Artist: Dense
Title:
Revived Stones
Label:
Cosmicleaf
Released:
9th October 2019
I’m
not overly familiar with the solo productions of Berlin based Dense.
In fact my knowledge stems back some time to his collaboration with
GMO and the album ‘Tales from the Yellow Kangaroo’ and more
recently ‘The Blue Hole’.
The
album begins with a slightly soulful vocal intro on ‘Entering
Triton’ and harps back slightly to said Yellow Kangaroo with a
somewhat Aboriginal feel. This is followed by a more laid back
chilled trance vibe on ‘Signals from Thalassa’ and the sparse
vocals work better for me in this piece. Whilst ‘Siren’
introduces an acoustic guitar riff that adds an atmosphere of a sunny
beach to subtle seductive vocals and I’m beginning to warm to this
release.
Housey
piano notes lead you in ‘Don’t Make Me Yours’ which has a
little more drive than the previous pieces and kind of puts me in
mind of Depeche Mode with a female vocal a very pleasant track
indeed. There’s a touch of an acidic underbelly to the plodding
beat and harmonious tones of ‘Landing Save in Naiad’ the first
instrumental of the album. This is followed by ‘Halimede’ another
which utilises a more intricate pattern with plenty of twist and
turns from angelic vocal harmonies to darker gritter synth stabs.
This
mood continues in a similar vein with ‘Psamathe’ with the vocal
harmonies replaced by spoken word with a touch of reverb. Finally to
close ‘The Missed Chance’ fuses eerie synth sounds with a
trip-hop like beat, dubbed out spoken words and operatic harmonies.
Reviewed
by Woodzee.
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