High Aura’d / André Foisy – Split Tape C30

A-side: After a period of intense meditation up high in the mountain peaks, his holiness High Aura’D, descends back down to the lowlands in order to present ‘Dusk Latitudes’, 22 minutes of wide and intensive exposure to the radiation effects associated with subtle and luminous guitar glory.

A post-apocalyptic soundscape, in which a suffocation of frenzied feedback, cataclysmic synth keys and demonic drone is juxtaposed with short and subtle moments in a life affirming peace garden, one where enduring acoustic edifices, vocalised verandas, timbral terraces and pitch paths compliment the carefully raked sonic stones.

This is a direct challenge to the dualist dystopia or tendency of humanity to perceive and understand the world as being divided into two overarching categories.

The work moves into the realm “beyond good and evil” in the sense of leaving behind the traditional musicality which High Aura’D subjects to a destructive critique in favour of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.

B-side: A dark and mysterious lone figure briefly ascends from a deep dungeon of torment and suffering, André Foisy has returned to condemn humanity with ‘Untitled’, 21 minutes of sinister stringed sorcery that comes directly from the yawning void of Chaos, home of damned souls.

Although doom laden from the start, the eventual extent to which this begrimed guitar grief, immoral synth moods, debauched drone and victimised vocals sink to is enough to deter even the darkest of musical matter to enter the acoustic abyss. This is a glimpse of harmonic hell, the place where sounds are judged after they decay.

This noisy notion seems to ponder the concept of salvation in Western religion, a reference to the adjudication of God in determining Heaven or Hell for each and all human beings.

However, there are some creeds that claim that salvation can be attained by using only inner human resources such as meditation, accumulation of wisdom, asceticism, rituals, or good deeds. Perhaps listening to this music repeatedly over time will result in an impersonal merging with the Absolute, one expects that Foisy already knows the answer to this occult conundrum.

- Review by Dean Rocker for Fluid Radio

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