HOLLYDRIFT "Waiting for the Tiller"
Parasomnic Records | PSRD003 | CD | 2004

There's a concept behind this work. The audio story tells about abduction or a disappearance of a young girl Marisa Relay, who one day went out and never came back. Every track's name referring to a particular episode has a kind of subtitle that helps to sort the whole story out. The music tells the story with its own "language," so both elements (titles, and sounds) perfectly fit each other. I suggest holding the booklet in your hands when listening to the music for the first time to note how interestingly the artist managed to acquit himself of the limitations of the concept. Surely, if you don't bother about the concept, you can just sit down and put headphones to enjoy the music alone. "Waiting for the Tiller" (Hollydrift's third album so far) belongs to this type of records that are all about building up suspense, avoiding direct clues, and straightforward comments. I have in my mind such records now like When's "Death in the Cold, Blue Lake," RongWrong's "The Story of Alfons Czahor", or Art Zoyd's famous film soundtracks. The record opens with an introduction - unsettling electro background, and some voice samples in the foreground. As I said, on this record Mathias Anderson aka Hollydrift focuses on creating a mood that would reflect feelings coming to the surface during the events which took place after the girl's vanishing. The suspense is built up through an effect of anxious ambience consisting of humming ionising sounds, white noises, vibrations, and pulsations. To realize some ideas behind particular tracks, the artist availed himself of the imitation of sonic environment of those moments, i.e. signals, field recordings (insects), nature sounds (storm thunders), and, first of all, voice samples (mostly from TV and radio) that appear occasionally throughout the record. The tension builds up slowly over 70-minute-long album, and veers from, say, mysterious and dark ambiences of Information or Main , through obsessive and obscure sounds in vein of C.O. Caspar and Deutsch Nepal to black depths of Raise d'Etre or Lustmord. Many references here, but I think it makes the album description clearer. Hollydrift borrows inspiration skilfully and doesn't ape. Finally, I'd like to recommend this album to all with those with imagination and sensitive ears, other dark ambient lovers should get interested in this project too, because, judging by those albums I have had a chance to listen, Hollydrift does a lot to make himself sound different from a host of other dark ambient makers!

[krzysztof sadza]