SACRAE SYMPHONIA NO. 1

Apollon Records sent me a promo copy of this record earlier this year thinking I could handle this I guess. They were wrong. I knew from that first spin that this 40 minute piece of pretty much unstructured soundscape music was going to take a lot of listening in order for me to "get it". I didn't like it after the first listen and many, many listens later I still don't get it but I'm beyond spending any more time with it. A challenge because it is noisy with a lot of computer generated sounds that I for the most part don't enjoy. It's partly composed, partly improvized with nine musicians involved.

There's not two sax players as it shows on the site here, the other plays piano. Mr. Einersen is the man here composing the music and adding live FX, computer programming and synths. This is his vision. The best thing to come out of this for me was finding out that Einersen played on FRUITCAKE's final studio album adding flute and being part of the band. What?! That was back in 2004. We are a looong way from that kind of music my friends. This record was mixed by TORTOISE's John McEntire and mastered by Jacob Holm-Lupo who was part of WESERBERGLAND's debut album which I like so much more than this one. Even the guests on that one were so impressive.

The band described the debut as Prog meets Krautrock while the second record they described as contemporary classical meets experimental electronics meets some form of Krautrock. This one they refer to as contemporary classical meets Krautrock and micro computers with noise rock assaults. I'm not into noise. That is heard right from the start and it ends in a similar way with those scraping industrial sounds to the point I want to cover my ears but then some warmth. It stays experimental, almost haunting before some free jazz sounding horns wail away.

Manic drumming comes and goes throughout this record and again just not my thing at all but kudos for all the work man. After 17 minutes I'm hearing computer generated sounds I believe unlike anything I've heard. Is that a bass line? An abrupt change 21 1/2 minutes in to crazy drumming and a sweeping atmosphere. Some depth 28 minutes in is a nice change. More free jazz sounding stuff follows.

Apologies to my buddy Drew who considers this a contender for album of the year and he's not the only one. This one went right over my head but there's no way it's a 4 star record in my world. Finally I consider myself a spiritual person but not religious but honestly I don't hear even a whisper of either on this record.