ninehertz

An unexpected pairing here. On one side, A-Sun Amissa, a band that have spent years honing their craft, constantly creating, innovating and finding new avenues to contextualise their enigmatic minimalist ambient drones. On the other, Lauren Mason, best known as part of Torpor, one of the best and most highly respective bands in the British doom underground, a band who merged post-metal in to create foreboding atmospheres.

How this North/South union came to pass is unknown, but as soon as it was made public it conjured all manner of possibilities. They made their first appearance at a gig in A-Sun Amissa’s hometown where the full extent of the vision became clear, a show that was more than a gig, with the projections adding to the theme and the clarinet cutting through the dark cast by the drones and poetry.

Water Scores is the amalgamation of Mason’s poetry works, here centred around the corporate pollution of the planet’s water, soundtracked by A-Sun Amissa’s mastery of the ambient and the dark. At times the backing is almost onomatopoeic, if that can be stretched thus, in a way mimicking the sounds of the polluting industries or conversely the water itself. You find your mind wandering to these thoughts, and once there you can be lost within this dual narrative.

It is a vast score, where Mason’s readings start to subtly change, elongating and playing with pronunciations to great effect, the words increasingly entwined within and embossed upon the ominous pulsations and rippling instrumentation. The are moments of quiet, distant and dryly hustling minimalist noises, then added to by more cinematic rays of musical light.

It intensifies towards its denouement, instruments as sirens as Mason's talk of storm is echoed back, getting darker, more prominent, impactful as it starts to close in around you. It is a wonderful conjuring and teasing of your imagination and emotion as the sounds whirl above, until, with four minutes to go, it breaks and some calm is restored, the winds begin to settle, the threat dissipated.

Truth be told, I find this hard to describe as a musical piece, my own limitations stretched as standard structures be damned. But I wanted to try, to at least get something down to shine what little light we can here, for the ambition alone is worth the attention. It is beyond music, as much an art installation, maybe more than that too given the characters involved and the gravitas of the piece – it is an event. And ultimately, it is moving, both in its words, its music, its message and its union.