(probably one of my shortest reviews in years - but then again: so what???)
No need this time to introduce this Iranian project by Mehdi Saleh, nor the long-time label behind it. I go over to the sonic content of the album immediately. I’ll be brief and concise.
First this. Interdimensional is the xxth release (seriously, I have no idea how much albums this project released in the meantime) by Alphaxone, which ‘takes us deep into unexplored alien worlds’. Everything was written, recorded and produced by Mehdi himself, with mastering duties done by the label’s big chief Simon Heath. Also the visuals were created by Simon too, which isn’t surprising anymore.
The release consists of nine lengthy compositions, having a total running time of more than sixty-six minutes. Those trusted with this great artist’s former aural artistry will surely adore this newest epos; it might be the most ambitious Alphaxone recording to date, I think (subjective point of view, yet since I am the reviewer of this op-ed, I have the right to tell this, haha). No, seriously, Interdimensional continues the path of this act’s notorious darkened, floating and mysterious Cinematic Dark Space Drone Ambient, with an oppressive atmosphere never that dense and heavy as before. It’s the soundtrack for an eerie journey through dimensions unexplored before, where the absence of light exhales purest claustrophobia. It narrates about isolationism, yet with a lurking presence dwelling nearby, invisible yet impending.
Long-stretched layers, slow yet mesmerizing in nature, float by, like ominous waves of sound-tapestry. These dreamlike harmonies reveal a visionary ambience through really beautiful, delicate textures of reverence and marvel. In a mostly subtle yet highly important sense, all this gets permanently enriched by additional sounds, like field-recorded elements, reverberating noises, pulsating drones, cracks and hisses.
There is a specific variation in between, and through the compositions, with calmer, long-waved ones that translate isolationism and endlessness into aural matter, up to rather vivid excerpts of audacious amenity. A piece like Temporal Vortex, for example, comes with astral-laden electronic pulses, while Starfields caresses the world of timelessness with its hints of IDM and Trance (mind the well-chosen and lucid oscillations and percussions). Others brings forth a somewhat post-industrialized tang, through the use of distantly-mechanoid additions, then again everything moves over to luxuriant sonic spheres of exploration and discovery, or things do visit an orbit of transcendental and ethereal hypnosis.
As for now, I’ll leave it at this point; let the Aural Art do the talking. I cannot but recommend this album once more, for it accompanies the listener through prodigious spectrums of sound and fantasy.
https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/album/interdimensional
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-0
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-1
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-3
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-xerxes-dark
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-protou
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-protou-0
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-rojinski
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-dronny-darko