Cassette Review // Niko-Matti Ahti "Looking For A Ruler" (Dinzu Artefacts)

 

https://dinzuartefacts.bandcamp.com/album/looking-for-a-ruler

We begin with slow tones creeping in.   Slow and minimal is how this all comes through.  Some scraping now.   Some glass sounds and then shifting sounds as well.   It feels like we're going into whooshes as the drone is ascending behind us.   Piano keys now.   The sounds feel isolated, almost as if they're coming out in slow motion and then you can hear the guitar strings being plucked as well.

This music just feels fragmented, as if it's falling apart.   We're slowly scraping down and a ticking can be heard, as if a bomb is about to go off.   Notes break off and a random shuffling of papers can be heard as well.   It really just feels as if we're sliding down that tube now.   A hollow feeling, but one of falling still.   A somewhat sharp ringing comes through now and then it sounds like fireworks.

A sharp, ringing type of sound comes through and then we're back to almost nothing.   It's interesting because the story on this first side is that feeling of it being minimal and almost not even there, as at times I expect it will end but it doesn't, and then you just hear this loud sound come through, fade to nothing and then repeat.   It's really an interesting exercise in listening.

On the flip side we come right in with that sharp feedback.  A little bit of a buzzing comes in with the sharpness now.   It feels as if we hit that quiet stride again only for ambient tones to take over with the sound a rain.  A slight high pitched tone now, which if played out of speakers would likely bother dogs.   We go into this darker, deeper place and it feels almost like a train going by in the subway.   

One note comes through now, one tone to remind us we're still here.   It repeats.   A slight sharpness comes through now, like a crack in the light.   A loud strum like a crash now.   It happens again and now the sound feels like an engine revving up, a car starting.   Acoustic notes come in with it.  A steady wave and delicate plucks now.  A sound like water running now.   We're ringing as we travel around the bowl and this just feels like a very short horror movie score and this is how we reach the end.