Detailed Reviews [Daal - 2011- "Destruktive Actions Affect Livings"]

Prolusion. Please read here in Vitaly's review of the album.

Analysis. This Italian duo is a new experience for me, and at least on this album something of a careful roller-coaster ride as well. In between one brilliant gem after the other there's a couple of items here that just didn't manage to capture my imagination and emotions in the same manner as the rest. The overall style of this production resides within the progressive electronic realm. And a rather experimental variety of it as well I might add. Futuristic sounds and textures dominate this CD through and through, although in somewhat different constellations. Opening piece Redroom is a dark, ambient construction with brooding atmospheres and machine-like, emotionless rhythms a presence towards the end. AnarChrist is a rather different entity altogether, with a dark, swirling and fairly energetic undercurrent as something of a mainstay element beneath rhythms and layers of sickly sounding keyboards and synths building up and down in intensity that eventually ebbs out on a careful, ambient and brooding final movement. Noises from an Interlude again change focus, this one a subtly chaotic constellation of rhythms and sounds with alien and futuristic characteristics blended with garbled voices, the sound of a baby crying and a heartbeat. Contrasting features utilized to good effect. Level 6666 continues exploring intriguing territories, alternating between an Eastern inspired mystical theme and the by now customary futuristic sound constructions quite nicely. The Dance of the Drastic Navels-II is more of a careful, fragile and overall ambient excursion, and while it contains both a vocals dominated movement and sequences sporting many intriguing details this electronic composition becomes too meandering for me overall. A nice piece of headphone music for those with a firm taste for experimental electronic music of a more dedicated careful and ambient nature that does sport a few nice eruptions of a more energetic variety but not enough to satisfy my mind. The following four compositions are very much of a similar kind as far as interest levels go for me, with the elongated piece Destruktive Actions Affect Livings the least interesting while the shorter items by and large come across as more inspired to my mind. A marked difference for the final quartet of compositions is the inclusion of sequences and passages with a stronger emphasis on jazz, and in the case of Aglatarium the first section is actually a purebred case of this with sax, piano, drums and bass providing a good, old-fashioned run through that style. Later on repeated within a futuristic coating to good effect I might add. When Memories of Old Pictures appears to conclude this CD, we're also treated to a nice and effective revisit of some of the themes explored earlier on. A fitting way to conclude this album.

Conclusion. Daal's 2011 CD "Destruktive Actions Affect Livings" comes across as something of a smorgasbord of compositions and constructions that utilize electronic and rhythms to give sound and life to a cold, alien futuristic landscape with occasional traces of human warmth. Those fond of sophisticated electronic music will find a lot to enjoy on this production, and if you have a taste for subtler effects carefully employed in elongated pieces of a mostly ambient nature as well I'd expect you to love this CD from the moment it sets off until the final notes wheeze out at the end. But a highly recommended disc it is anyhow, as long as you have an interest in adventurous progressive electronic music.

OMB=Olav M Bjornsen: July 5, 2013
The Rating Room