I read the alien writings and learn from their incomprehensibility: nothing can ever be fully elucidated. A glistening surface hides a blackened underbelly. A single layer provides clues to decode the layers surrounding it. Given infinite time, a session of static and sustained tones gathers details with each overdub and mixing decision, blooming into a rarefied time-lapse of many hours spent staring down the screen. The resultant waveform offers enough stimulation in one go to fuel hours of nothingness, hours of everything.
“Clear Passage” shines and moans. What sounds on first listen like a lone slab of driftwood passing through the waters of Returnal gathers mystery and momentum as the minutes tick by, burgeoning into a chunk of iridescent droning matter with enough mass to satisfy all the tributaries beckoning into adjacent waterways. Wait for the tidal shifts in the root note, churning out new harmonies somewhere behind the haze, implying alternate routes to low-end enlightenment. Select any torrent of bleached synth and trace its path through the session. Lose it for a moment and find it across the mix, lending weight to the slow burning upper-register poised at the tip of combustion.
Holodeck Records has extended its tentacles across the international underground, scooping up artists and collaborators as far flung as Montreal and as close to home as Austin, TX. Having found spiritual relatives among the roster of Constellation Records, the introduction of Symbol (Christopher Royal King of Texan orchestral instrumental ensemble This Will Destroy You) to the Holodeck roster cements the label’s prime position along an evolving spectrum of experimentalism that continues to spark new tape labels into existence with each passing moment. Symbol claims the next peg up on the “post-” trajectory, carrying any inklings of “rock” to their deepest point of ambient departure and bidding them good luck on their journey through the waves.
Online Architecture, the debut LP from Symbol, arrives on April 8 on LP, CS, and digital via Holodeck Records.
• Symbol: https://soundcloud.com/lightlodge
• Holodeck Records: http://holodeckrecords.com