20 Feb 2012 — Tonje Thilesen
It is a dark and hopeless landscape of Iceland we're entering in the music of Birmingham-born, now Reykjavik based
Russell Harmon, and with the
Ben Frost gig at
CTM fresh in mind (honestly being amongst the best musical experiences we've ever had), there is definitely no doubt where Harmon has gotten his inspiration from.
While Frost sometimes finds pleasure in scaring the shit out of you with heavy drones of sondwaves, Russell Harmon never exactly enters this point of no return. Instead, he builds up a landscape in form of locked rooms and empty hospital corridors, slowly but steadily unveiling us a frightening truth behind dark piano accords and dry textures. We try to reach out to grab it, but at the very second the sound retreats, leaving us confused and helpless in the middle of an apocalyptic, empty landscape, somewhat like Frost's own "We love you Michael Gira", when the near-visible silence approaches us towards the ending. And even though "Tragedy Fractures" will wear you physically down, we can guarantee that you will not be left empty-handed; this is honestly a very, very inspirational and amazingly crafted piece of work, and
we can't barely wait to finally hear the whole EP in mid-march. Until then.
Russell Harmon - Tragedy Fractures
Kontakte - Hope (Russell Harmon remix)
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Artwork]
