Regular readers will know of my distaste for 'ambient' music, even though in saying as much again I feel a little ridiculous since it seems implausible that music designed to be inoffensive/unobtrusive can cause such anxiety. But there it is. So upon seeing the A-word in the promotional literature for Komora A's Crystal Dwarf I almost immediately clicked off but didn't having read that there was supposedly more to them than soothing sounds or whatever. For once the blurb is right, as is apparent from the first track, Waking Up, which hardly caused my ears to prick up but the space, bass tone, texture and irregular beat kept me listening. Two-thirds of the way through it gets harsher, more disturbing. Good. One pleasing aspect is the ghost of genre (techno-ish) floating in the background, specifically on Beats And Memories, although elsewhere it's as if a trace remains of a non-ambient album, erased all bar the silent suggesting. Inscape Module and Drone Of Unreality are strong tracks, all the more so for reining back on full-throttle noise in favour of tension and mood.
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