Year: 2012
Genre: Experimental, Ambient, Post-rock, Shoegaze
My Review:
I asked a while back for some friends to do a couple reviews of music that they really enjoyed. I've decided that now might be an interesting time to start going through them. Starting out is a review from a close friend of mine whose a synesthetic. Here is her review.
Tagged as “Experimental, ambient, post-rock, shoegaze” on Bandcamp, MMIX by the German band Líam manages to hit all of those points beautifully. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the album since I had never heard the band before, but I was in a post-rock kind of mood and it made me feel like a junkie getting my fix. Due to the synesthesia, I’m going to have to describe this music mostly in visuals because that’s the easiest way for me to verbalize it.
MMIX oscillates between hard, guitar-diven rock and softer ambient and experimental sounds. The softer music I would describe as pleochroic, stealing the gemologists’ term for a color change that occurs with a shift of light. It’s a little like focusing a camera; overall, the music looks a certain colour and texture, muted greys, soft greens and blues and the occasional lavender, with the smoky nature that only post-rock seems to do well. However, as I focus my ear on a particular instrument, the focus shifts and music changes from a veiled scene to a brilliant shade of orange or blue, with staccato textures I ignored on the highest level. These colours appear against the mist of the greater view, but at a much higher altitude.
In their more vibrant moments, Líam achieves a coherence of purpose among it’s individual sounds, with slightly varying hues moving together and forming a concrete directional movement. Much like watching a turbid spray of water twisting and advancing in minimal gravity, but lit from within with coloured light. In these moments the background, the outer edge of the music, my peripheral musical vision, is not black as it is in most songs, but a deep red or orange still within the visible spectrum.
When Líam returns from their ignition they tend to do so in a void, with focused execution that allows an individual sound to vibrate and move as a lit wavelength, moving in impossible trajectories but always reshaping to an original form. The beautiful lifts and drops of Líam’s music make it easy to simply close your eyes and listen only, doing nothing but appreciating the soundscapes this band is able to produce.
Well I think that definitely does this justice. I hope you enjoy, and Thank you Ned for sharing some good post rock.
Líam - MMIX
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