It’s always interesting to play new music of a certain genre or sound to people who have either never come across music of the same sort or thoroughly dislike that kind of music. Agreed, the reactions can sometimes be extremely frustrating, arguments of the ‘this is not music, this is just sound’ or ‘this is just lazy, these guys are doing nothing’ are ones that I have personally come across quite often with the earlier being particularly infuriating at times. The best outcome, the one that I love and always remember, is when you play someone an album you know is pretty good and see looks of confusion turning to surprise and ending at a very distinctive kind of gratitude. Gratitude that this music exists, that they were introduced to it, that this is going to become a turning point of sorts in their personal exploration of music. One that I hardly expected to see on a face of a die hard trance/electro/house fan on playing him Kyle Bobby Dunn‘s latest LP In Miserum Stercus. But it happened and it was beautiful, such is this album’s strength in transcending limitations of personal preferences and extending to the realm of the universal, the timeless.
Let me start off by pointing out one thing, In Miserum Stercus is hardly a radical change in Kyle Bobby Dunn’s sound; it’s simply a continuation of the sound we’ve come accustomed to by the Canadian ambient drone artist. The sound that I have come to refer to as ‘dream drone’, one that only he and a very unique group of artists craft at this high level and his ability to keep on building upon, honing and perfecting that sound ranks him among the likes of Christian Vantzou, Rafael Anton Irisarri and Olan Mill as the rightful heirs to Stars of the Lid‘s throne.
It is the kind of music that one needs to have in his or her life, the kind that would almost single handedly change the course of a day from worse to better, that makes one contemplate, think harder, evaluate decisions, take them back and make new ones. It opens doors that would otherwise remain closed and left to gather dust and shelter cobwebs. It’s deeply personal, relatable; music for epiphanies and revelations, music for the spirit. The drones wash in what may seem as a very organic manner but a closer look (or listen) would reveal how calculated everything is, nothing is totally random and that’s what gives it its strength as a work of art. It forces its audience to take a step back and think, forces them to take the first steps along a long forgotten path and then leaves them to take or leave what they want from it and in the end one can’t help but be grateful for having gone through it.
It’s a high of its own, a different experience, such as the case is with every album he has released to date and one that’s definitely worth having. The music won’t challenge you to accept it, it would challenge the world to bring you down after having listened to it. One would discover and in turn accept new realities about themselves after it, a refreshing rush of cold water, a long overdue, longwinded wake up call. (Mohammed Ashraf)
a closer listen 