Hallock Hill

Angel, “Bones in the Sand,” Kalmukia (Editions Mego 2008)

This is the third release from Ilpo Väisänen (Pan Sonic), Hildur Guðnadóttir (Lost In Hildurness) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM) under their Angel moniker. Angel was originally formed as the duo of Väisänen and Dresselhaus in 1999, releasing two live albums: in 2002 an eponymously-titled album on the French Bip_Hop label and in 2006 a recording of a drone piece played at the Club Transmediale Festival in Berlin in 2005.

This shows some very heavy, wonderfully rich guitar drones, replete with pulsing tube-saturation throb. The three musicians entwine gorgeously, reacting to the slow accretions of sound and energy that develop over time. The CD is accompanied by a small booklet with meditative prose-poetry rendered in facsimile of a holograph manuscript—lending an added aura of the elusive. “One 17th of May,” it opens,” we enter a place in Kalmukia, wich [sic] is only 30-40 kilometers away from the river Volga… We make the plan for the wiring but the invasion has already started… When we enter the place it has an effect on us. The locals call it ‘blissful death’… To avoid these symptoms we have to eat sturgeon eggs… … …” The mp3 here really does not do the track justice—there is great subtlety of timbre that needs to be experienced. Buy at Forced Exposure to get the full experience.

Editions Mego

Angel MySpace