Most of the time what draws me to an album is whether or not I think it will musically resonate with me. That isn’t to say that the intention and message behind an album isn’t important, certainly in cases where an album espouses values I would avoid giving attention to, but whether or not I have a good listening experience is the chief factor in my decision making process for this site. When an album piques my musical curiosity and is influenced by phenomena I find fascinating, however, it’s almost like a magnetic pull towards it. In today’s instance, that album is Sonologyst‘s latest double-length release entitled Shortwave Spectrum, a self-styled “sonic documentary” focusing on the concept of Number Stations.
To the uninitiated, Number Stations are cryptic shortwave radio broadcasts picked up throughout the decades since short-wave radio began that feature a voice reading a series of seemingly random numbers in sequence, short morse-code like pulses, and even bits of music and repetitive sounds. The purpose of Number Stations is highly speculative; some were, and still are, attributed to governments using unblockable radio signals to send encoded messages to secret agents abroad, as during the Cold War era, while other observers have given paranormal and supernatural significance to the messages supposedly contained inside these broadcasts. Their enigmatic nature gives them a malleability that allows them to fit into many different kinds of mythos, and they have been a source of fascination to me for some time, as with many things yet unexplained in our world.
Shortwave Spectrum is an attempt to catalogue these captured phenomena and turn them into art by weaving the actual captured transmissions themselves into droning soundscapes. Disc One of Shortwave Spectrum presents the radio transmissions as manipulated using analogue synthesizers and tape recorders by Sonologyst’s Raffaele Pezzella. The otherworldly nature of these broadcasts is deftly augmented with concrete drones and minimalist ambiance, giving them both an ominous looming presence and a veneer of beauty. Disc Two is composed of one single forty-one minute piece entitled “Shortwaves,” which presents the broadcasts more-or-less intact, using only minimal drone to tie together various stations’ broadcasts, which include spoken word, music, and other sounds.
The end result of this ninety-minute journey is much the same as one would get pouring over occult texts in a library or late night internet research fueled by way too much caffeine: it left me invigorated, captivated, a little creeped out, and desperate for more. Shortwave Spectrum is a fascinating look at giving tangibility to the occluded, of using art to both catalogue and preserve an ongoing mystery of our world and to make the listener a part of that mystery themselves. This is far and away one of the most ambitious albums I have listened to this year, AND it is executed to perfection.
— Vincent
Shortwave Spectrum is available now digitally and on double disc through Cold Spring Records. For more information on Sonologyst, visit their official website.
Nine Circles 