THERIANTHROPE

Hamlet Tinae. I had no idea who he was but somehow we connected on Facebook. It turns out, a couple of musicians I know collaborated with him on this album and I guess that's how he found me. Since I was seeing all these cool photos of this guy who, in one photo at least, looked like he was from a vampire movie and also appeared with an intriguing band called Fabulae Dramatis, I thought I should check out his music. I ordered this album blindly. Or rather deafly because I had at least seen how Hamlet looks but never heard anything other than a short clip from Fabulae Dramatis.

Sometimes it's really great to get an album that totally surprises you in a good way. I mean, it might not be what you're into at the moment but it lands in your aural lap and throws cold water in your audio processors and makes you go, "Woah!" and then fall off your spinny chair. If you have one.

How to concisely describe the music on this release of Transport Aerian (I haven't heard others but I am certainly interested now!) was eluding me, Sunshine, so I went to the profile page on Melodic Revolution Records (home to so many unique music projects!) and found this description:

"Transport Aerian is essentially a one-man prog noir project led by a producer and multi-instrumentalist Hamlet. It sets no strict genre borders, knows no musical or spiritual limits. At the different times, the project had been working with different musicians, always changing and shifting its live and studio experiences depending on what the current creative state demands, performing drastically different kinds of music, yet always staying in the shape of poetic, sharp-edged artistic kind.

"The project's philosophy is closest to those, calling themselves expressionists in poetry and fine arts, therefore, the inner side of the emotional expression is what Hamlet intends to bring through project's music to whoever who is willing to hear the word said."

That is a pretty good explanation. This album is dark, brooding, deep, and murky. It's heavy at times but in a forboding kind of way. It's industrial at times with that air of dark poetry that often comes with industrial music. It's mysterious. It's haunting. It's beautiful. It's profound! "I've got a problem with survivour's guilt. I've got a problem dealing with it. I've got a problem with a herroine whore, staring at me from the record in a vinyl store." (from the first track "Smirking Sirens")

Hamlet has created an album of two approaches. First is the traditional approach of writing songs and composing music. Well, okay, the sometimes clashing notes and dischordency or the unusual blend of instruments is not exactly traditional. But these are lyrics and music created by one man. Then there's the Abstract Symphony. For these five tracks, Hamlet sent the concept of each track to several outside musicians and asked them to play and record whatever they imagined from the title alone. The five titles are "Information Field", "Saturate", "Lovemeat", "Poor Things Need", and "Immortals". From their contributions, which were made without the musicians having any idea of how the final piece would sound, Hamlet created these five diverse tracks. I'll say that the experiment worked successfully!

One point I really like is the spoken words by Rachel Bauer. With her accent, the quality of her voice, and the enigmatic words she speaks, and the music accompanying her, there is a special delight for me to hear her.

Transport Aerian's "Therianthrope" is not going to be an album for people who are more into crossover prog or popular song-writing styles. It may be too weird for some and there's quite a range of instrumental sounds that are outside the traditional rock band format. However, this is an album that some people need to know about. You! You should know who you are. This album has a message for you types. Hamlet Tinae is communicating with people like you through his music. Won't you listen?

Belgian band Transport Aerian started off as a solo project by multi-instrumentalist Hamlet Tinae, but by the time he had reached this his fifth album in 2017 he was still providing much of the instrumentation, but this time around he decided to bring in many guests to help him fill out the sound. To say this is dark, complex, ethereal and majestic actually doesn't do justice to the music. It feels fragile, as if the glass has been shattered but not all pieces have fallen yet, and when they do then the listener will be required to walk barefoot over the shards. The themes of the album are dedicated to the emotions of the mind, torn by different assets of mental illness in the context of quickly developing the world on the brink of the war, social and economic catastrophe, and it certainly feels like the output of a broken mind.

It also feels incredibly cinematic, and it wasn't a surprise to discover that one piece of music, 'The Abstract Symphony' (here in five parts) was a set of songs and instrumental pieces based on blind improvisation by those involved. Nobody knew what the other musician would play, as they were only given a theme to describe and photographs to emphasize the visual in the sound. These musicians include Paul Sax (Curved Air, Praying for The Rain), Elvya (Ayreon, Elvya), Marco Ragni (solo), Peter Matuchniak (Gekko Project), JoJo Razor (Gekko Project), Stef Flaming (Murky Red, Ocean 5), Darren Brush, Stefan Boeykens and Rachel Bauer. I know quite a few of these musicians, at least by their work, and found it hard to recognise their individual inputs such is the way their normal playing has been distorted by the demands placed upon them.

If there was ever an album to describe mental illness, then it would be this, as it moves and jumps from one place to another, always making sense but often on its own and with no relationship to what has gone before. Due to this it is a hard album to listen to, and there will be far more who feel this is beyond them than those of us who have stayed the course and end it wondering what on earth is going in the head of Hamlet. Not for the faint-hearted, if ever there was an album to hear before purchasing then it has to be this, but I found it compelling.