REVIEWS : FROZEN RABBIT - 26,000
|
Frozen Rabbit
26,000
(Dehausset, CD)
(04.21.05) Frozen Rabbit is the dark ambient drone collaboration between Phil Western and Tim Hill, veterans of the Vancouver, B. C., music scene. Western's (Skinny Puppy, Download, Plateau and others) and Hill's (Living with Mould Orchestra) previous collaborations were more dance floor friendly -- little beat missives meant to get your butt wiggling on the lighted tiles. Frozen Rabbit is a straight shot in the opposite direction -- a beeline made for the ambient horizon, beats and bass stripped away as extraneous noises in the pursuit of endless sustain, infinite reverb and a shimmering wall of hazy sound. 26,000 is a record that changes slowly like tides eating away at limestone cliffs yet the intensity of its movement is ferocious.
"Never Say Forever" hesitates on the cusp of eruption, a white light moment that is full of potential and yet never quite reaches critical mass. Tones build against a groaning background of slumbering drones and, for seven and a half minutes, you are left hanging, waiting for that next instant of time when the Big Bang, the White Light, the sundering of Time and Space -- any of these things! -- occurs. It never does and the energy drains away into the spectral chorus and cross-fading notes of floating stringed instruments of "Isolate Now." A human voice sings in the round in "26,000," a recursive vocal loop that goes Ouroboros-like for its own tail. "Cold Morning" bristles like an ice haze scouring across a frozen tundra.
26,000 is a ritual record, an experiment in psychedelic ambience where throat singers and ghostly porn stars are bent to the same task, where drones are warped and bent out of shape, where the glacial change of tonality and texture are the norm and where your breath is ultimately meant to be suspended, caught between the last exhalation of one "OHM" and the slow lung expansion of the next iteration of the cycle. I keep waiting for something to happen in 26,000 and maybe that's the whole feverish point of the record: something might happen. It's a model of restraint, a coiled serpent of sound that never strikes. But that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.
26,000 is out now on Dehausset Records.
Mark Teppo, Contributing Editor
Igloo Magazine
Frozen Rabbit is a collaboration between two artists: Phillip Western and Tim Hill. Phillip has worked with Skinny Puppy and Download, while Tim has developed sound installations and Ambient music for Download and Plateau releases. To say that these artists know what they are doing musically would be an understatement.
As is typical in Ambient music, artists tend to be a bit self-indulgent by being fascinated with their own production skills and whose song lengths tend drift on forever with no purpose. Basically they are artists that serve themselves with the music being an afterthought.
This is not the case on Frozen Rabbit's 26,000.
26,000 is the first full length CD under the Frozen Rabbit moniker and they have set a high benchmark for the Ambient music genre. Every track on this release is perfectly executed and expertly timed. All the pieces begin and end right on time with no production malingering. Frozen Rabbit serves the music.
For the most part Frozen Rabbit's 26,000 is a beetle's journey into Ambient landscapes. The only real vocal performance is on the title track. However, it is not a straight ahead vocal, on the contrary, as much as it is a single sentence and morphing loop that has a hypnotic effect.
In fact, all of 26,000 has trance-inducing qualities. The textures and drones work to elevate the listener and take one across the Universe, only to bear witness to the birth of galaxies. This is a heady, powerful album delivered by two artists who have mastered this difficult form of music.
Fans of Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, Non's Children of the Black Sun, and Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Work Volume 2 are advised to add Frozen Rabbit's 26,000 to their Ambient collection; as any would be incomplete without it.
STANDOUT TRACKS: "Mould Sets In", "26,000", "A Flash of Light Then You're Gone"
Jason J. Bundy
< sickamongthepure >
July 2005
Frozen Rabbit
"26,000" CD
This new project of Phillip Western and fellow Vancouverite Tim Hill is an ambient/drone journey that sends the listener along a pathway to lands both dark and mysterious. Produced by Anthony 'Fu' Valcic, '26,000' is easily Western & Hill's finest and most accomplished work yet. 'A Flash Of Light And Then You're Gone' is a spiritual descendent of SPACEMEN 3's 'Ecstasy Symphony', whereas other cuts range from the loopy title track to the dark and spacious 'Cold Morning', which wouldn't be out of place on a LUSTMORD disc (just for comparison's sake). A superlative effort and an engrossing trip. Fullest recommendations. (Dehausset / Flesh Eating Ants)
Todd Zachritz
Godsend Online
Frozen Rabbit - "26,000"
Dehausset Records
Vancouver B.C. electronic music stalwarts Phil
Western
and Tim Hill collaborate on 26,000, an evocative
piece
of ambient drone by their imprint Frozen Rabbit. Western is probably best known as a member of Skinny
Puppy, and Download, and his previous work with Hill
has been rooted in that industrial dance music
tradition. 26,000, however, is much more atmospheric
and entirely beatless. The music drifts, echoes,
reverberates, elevates, hypnotizes, collides, and
colludes, but it never really crashes. This is the
dreamlike state where you float miles above the earth
and even occasionally swerve rapidly downward, coming
within inches of ground, but you never actually touch
it.
While Skinny Puppy are generally looked upon as
forefathers of all things cold and digital, Frozen
Rabbit is a surprisingly warm and unshakably analog
affair. The cd comes with gorgeous, yet twisted,
artwork by Vancouver B.C. graphic institution I,
Braineater. In general a rather menacing aesthetic
which matches these visuals, is carried out, with
song
titles such as "Mould Sets In" and "Isolate Now".
Yet audibly, there is an unusually approachable feel
to Frozen Rabbit's drone on 26,000 that lends the
sounds a seductive quality that might trick a few
cynics into listening longer than they had planned.
The synths are expertly juxtaposed with some haunting
vocal loops, such as on the title track, which rise
up
from the ambient swamp. During "Purification Process"
it becomes difficult to tell if one is listening to a
synth or a throat-singing loop, though there is
definitely some mean-spirited heavy breathing to
taint
the seduction. These two seasoned gentlemen know
their knobs and twiddle them in an undeniablely
likeable manner. It's nice to have them treating the
cerebral to the same dedication they have the
physical
in the past.
Reviewed by Ricardo Wang
FR is a duo hailing from Vancouver. Phil Western (known from his involvement in Skinny Puppy, Download, Off'N'GoneÉ) and Tim Hill joined forces to write a meaningful opus in galactic ambient inspiration. "26,000" goes light years away from the established dark ambient standards. There's a kind of cold, frozen serenity hanging over their work, which makes it sound that space like. The "A flash of light then you're gone" and "Frozen rabbit" are both excellent illustrations of their sonic freedom. The duo likes to experience with long wafting sound waves recovered with dark moods. The "Never say forever"-cut is another cool cut of their knowledge. In a definitely more experimental vein the title-track features manipulated voices, which became like an ordinary sound. FR enlarges the ambient horizon joining new territories that still have to be explored! Something to discover! www.flesheatingants.com (DP:6/7)DP.
Side-Line
|
|