siLLy puPPy
ACHENAR is the alter ego of Duncan Hemmingway from Aviemore, Scotland as a strange musical side project from his apparent involvement in the Renoise products such as the the Redux Sampler and Phrase Sequencer. This project began in 2003 and has so far only produced two releases, this debut album ALL WILL CHANGE and a following EP in 2011 titled “Super Death Explosion Kittens.”
This is one of those one-man projects where Hemmingway can let his freak flag fly high in the kingdom of his own making with no band mates to bitch and whine about how weird things get and weird this is indeed. While avant-garde metal can lean towards a certain established subgenre such as black or death, ALCHENAR escapes any true definitions and is the epitome of experimental avant-garde music in every sense of the term.
While lumped into the world of metal simply because of the harsh cacophonous din that can erupt periodically throughout ALL WILL CHANGE, this album and project is not dedicated to any particular style of music as there are moments of beautifully melodic classical piano runs with a gloomy atmosphere as well as jittery techno-infused electronica outbursts that sounds like a bleak industrial version of rave music. There are also moments of Kayo Dot inspired atonal microtonal abstractness which takes you to a completely parallel universe of musical rules that are caustic and alienating.
The purpose of this album seems to remain outside the known musical universe and allow moments of harsh din contrast with slower contemplative moments of single instrumentation delivering a spooky minor key melodic hook that is guaranteed to haunt your dreams for weeks to come. There are also moments of pure noise where Hemmingway seems to be more interested in testing his new products for his company than creating captivating music but overall the musical flow remains consistently dark and forbidding existing somewhere between dark ambient and modern classical in the realms of microtonal indeterminacy. Sound effects are thrown in for good measure.
This is one of those albums that leaves me divided. On the one hand it is truly original sounding and captures bleak soundscapes that very few have succeeded in crafting. The 12 tracks which delivered here are described by the artist as the meeting of the harsh and the beautiful that utilizes sounds from conventual instruments to painstakingly crafted electronics which are used to capture natural sounds combined with a diverse array of creepy vocal styles. On the originality scale this is off the charts but in the end it feels a bit too random, too indeterminate and too unfocused to truly latch onto anything. This is a really good album for a total escape from reality and will be perfect for such moods but not enough thought went into the overall structure and therefore doesn’t really beckon frequent visits.