Endless Intermission

stranded
the sun bursts
weeping for a resurgence
where deserts parted
and rooftops once moaned

nursing a void

petrified and waiting
in an endless intermission
of dust


For me the notion of an endless intermission is something that we all eventually experience when we pass from this life. There are so many things that you wish you would have done before your time comes, that when your consciousness does finally give way for the final time you enter the endless intermission – a void where the story, your story, takes a break and never returns to fill in the gaps.

It is compelling then that these tracks you are listening to now provide what might be considered as the perfect emotional soundtrack to that endless intermission, that state of eternal flux where no story ever truly is complete. Anduin’s ‘Nursing A Void II’ opens in chaotic and unnerving fashion, colored black and white with the sounds of distant static and millennia old digital communications. It is the perfect introduction, followed by the equally gorgeous yet terrifying guitar ambience of Be My Friend in Exile.

Bengalfuel offers a transition into something a little more serene, here a light drone is juxtaposed with heavily treated percussive sounds that in all honesty resemble the minimal shuffle of any classic Kieren Hebden tune. It is a meeting of distant world’s that is done tastefully and with care. Herein the structure of the tracks really takes shape and it is clear this is not just a compilation of songs strewn together, but a distinct story playing out with a focussed vision.

Fabio Keiner’s ‘Nursing a Void’ offers a precursor to Anduin’s opening track of the same name, placed out of order on the release intentionally no doubt to great effect.

Pulling back from these sombre sounds Gimu treats the listener to an 11 minute jaunt into dense, layered and brutally honest ambient sounds. I say brutally honest because I feel nothing has been spared here, challenging the listener to pick apart each and every second until it finally closes. Linear Bells then presents a track full of melancholia, peppered with nostalgic synth washes and surface noise.

Often people talk about coming to terms with death, but for me it is coming to terms with the inevitable fact that in one’s short life you simply cannot achieve everything you want to. That endless intermission, if you will, is what I struggle to accept. What is beautiful here is this compilation, at least for me, plays out these emotional struggles, and as the final track Shredderghost’s ‘Figure of Empty Repose’ fades I feel as though I am ready to accept my own endless intermission.

~Alex Stretton