D/A A/D – This is My Hell CDR

Snip Snip

This is my first exposure to D/A A/D and it’s a bit of a surprise. Don’t know why, but I was expecting some harsh noise. This is My Hell is instead 3 longish tracks clocking in around 40 minutes of slow modular synthesizer compositions. It’s pretty minimalist and sounds like it’s half way in between Pulse Emitter and Klinikal Skum.

The first track doesn’t really do it for me. I find the sounds run-of-the-mill with the evolution of the track to be so-so. Some of the low-end pulsating finally starts vibrating in a good way towards the end of the track but that’s the only thing realy positive thing about it. Otherwise it’s quite generic.

I am immediately diggin the second track quite a bit more. The space is filled much more effectively and the individual sounds evolve on their own much more. The sounds are a little more complex. Though they share a lot of characteristics with the batch of sounds in the first track by the half-way point there is a lot of pent-up energy being released. Since this is the shortest track on the album it doesn’t quite evolve anymore then this though.

By the time the 3rd untitled track rolls around it really does feel like I am spiraling deeper into D/A A/D’s internal hell. There is this weird secrept depth to this drone, that is just very subtly different then what we started with, but for all we’ve already gone we’re only a small step from where we’ve begun. The sounds that began dry are now dipped in more reverb and delay but even at this point things are not moving any quicker. The evolution remains as slow, perhaps even slower and this track doesn’t feel any more layered then the few 2 or 3 different elements that have come before.

Because of the generic synthesizer sounds and sparce elements here This is My Hell just doesn’t quite cut it. For all the waiting and wanting it asks of me it just doesn’t give me back enough to be worth the long arduous listen it commands. The sounds and production are boring, generic and forgettable and after dealing with what feel like the same synth patches for almost 40 minutes This is My Hell feels like a let down when it finally reaches it’s conclusion.

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