Phonophani - Animal Imagination [Hubro Music]

Released on the Norwegian Hubro Music-imprint in mid-June is "Animal Imagination", the first outing of Espen Sommer Eide's musical guise Phonophani after a seven years hiatus. Following a mostly instinctive, animal- , or better dog-like approach to creating music as the press promo sheet puts it we see the artist entering a chaotic, yet beautiful sonic realm with this full length effort, starting with the crackling, blurred and multi-layered "Life's White Machine" which can be described best as the as a soundtrack to a psychedelic fever dream followed by "Deep Learning", a floating Ambient / Dark Ambient crossover at the start later accompanied by a hard banging Broken Techno foundation whilst the "Sunrise At Bear Island" fuses ambient'ish layers with swampy, possibly modular-generated bleeps and epic bass harmonies to a sweet effect. In "Untime Me" weird, vocal-imitating warps and modulations team up with blurry elements and well-distorted dubbings, the title track weighs in ten minutes of rattling noises and layers of hovering unharmonies whereas the Mud Boat" provides 74  seconds of spiralling electronic buzzes able to disturb your sense of balance for a reason. With "The End Of All Things III" Espen Sommer Eide crosses the 10+ minutes mark for the second time on "Animal Imagination", weighing in the most intense musical composition on the album comprised of threatening, danger-inducing bass drones and the hectic sounds of whirring electric insects able to trigger heavy paranoia in weak-heartened listeners, causing them to admit "I Have No Subsconscious" in the following tune although the off-kilter harmonies and soft pads found in this one are perfectly made to soothe one's inner demons. Furthermore "A Dark, Sharp, Heartless" could be complemented by the world 'ritual' as this might be the perfect sonic depiction of outerworldly exorcisms or the summoning of pitch black industrial demons, "Firmamental" brings in elemental unrest before the final cut "Sirma, 1997" provides ever shifting bass heavy chaos paired with exotic, altered and warped melodies of possibly ancient Asian origin. Interesting!

Album artwork on Instagram!