Sound Colour Vibration (Music | Art | Film | Technology | Science | Culture)

London’s Hanetration has released a record this year that has really taken me by surprise with the experimental electronica EP Torn Heat. Stretching very far outside of the usual tonal identity of modern electronica, there is an extensive diversion of the drone that sets place into all of the melodic ideas on the record. Removing a lot of percussive elements, the music wavers into abstract form with synthetically fabricated rhythms to keep the body of motion in a forward progression. Four songs in length, Torn Heat is an odyssey of the past, present and future in many ways, forming a musical pallet of sound that speaks a tribalistic and cosmic voice. This is one of those forward thinking albums in modern day, pushing open a new directory and corridor of sound that attaches the human soul and voice even more closely to the machines that produce these sounds.

Beginning with the song “Jurassic”, the EP begins with a flood of synthetic mayhem that stretches the music inside and out. With a befitting title to the presence of the music itself, it feels like you are stuck in a world where things are much bigger and dangerous than you. The percussion is minimal and full of beauty, becoming as much of a voice to the music as the drones that are wavering in and out of the mix with a lot of imagination and color. The positioning of the sounds inside of the mix opens up the music into another dimension, spreading the music into a heavily detailed 3D perspective that goes well beyond the tones themselves. With such little sound being utilized, there is a large voice and body constructed none the less.

“Splinter” shines with the same glowing and wavering quality as “Jurassic” but has more of a percussive voice, pushing the drone out of the entire spectrum of sound and into the higher registers. The percussion is presented in an unorthodox manner, giving the music a heavy sense of simultaneous rhythm and experimentation. As the electronic percussion fades into the set of drones layered onto one another, the percussion slowly fades back in with beats now lacing and running over one another. It’s a mirror effect of sorts and leaves the music in a hazy and hypnotic form. “Splinter” is something all its own, reminding me that there is a plethora of new emotions to explore through synthetic forms of sound.

With an album that displays as much unique tones as Torn Heat does, it comes with no surprise that something very different and unexpected occurs in the midst of its travel. This is true in Torn Heat, with the album taking a very different turn in the third song “Sixth”, removing all wavering and oscillated drone elements for a more pronounced set of different note sequences and a traditional sense of arrangement. “Sixth” is the type of diversion in the album that shows a much different side to Hanetration, one of deep composition and emotion in a more traditional realm. With the bulk of the music from this EP falling into a spiral of different colors and directions with a heavy state of drone layers and minimal percussion, this piece becomes the transitional point that brings the music back to this dimension. It’s a somber and slow piano piece that reflects the same menacing and dark mood captured in the other songs. It’s a stunning examination into how different modes of sound can produce the same results, regardless of the instrumentation being utilized.

“Sixth” evolves seamlessly into the final number of the album, “Flicker”. Back into the hazy, drone filled state of the first two songs, the last track on the album leaves out all percussion and becomes the darkest composition of the whole. In some forms of music, you can really hear something other worldly captured inside of the music. It’s an apparition or imprint that goes beyond properties we can explain. I feel like “Flicker” is the song on the album that captures this other worldly essence in the most potent form and it leaves the hairs on my neck standing up when I meditate deeply with this song playing in the background. The very end of this atonal soundscape reprises the melody used in “Sixth” for a remarkable finish.

Hanetration’s Torn Heat EP is something new and something very beautiful, capturing a setting of emotions and ideas that shows a composer going the extra mile to create detailed musical landscapes that pull deep from this world and beyond. With most albums, it takes awhile to process what I felt and what the experience revealed to me. With Torn Heat, I immediately became deeply encased inside of the experience and have not felt the same since.

-Erik Otis