ninehertz

Described as experimental post-rock, featuring Eric Quach (thisquietarmy) and Aidan Girt (Godspeed You! Black Emperor), I understand the excitement buzzing around this release but admittedly hold little of my own. Only when the releasing label (We, Here and Now! Records) reached out did I even think to listen, against my innate anti-post-rock feelings.

I’m glad I did. This is a wonderful record that eschews any potential constraints of the genre described. There are five tracks, two of which total half an hour between them, the whole a joyously immersive experience. Early on, during the 14 minutes of Frozen ICE, with expectations yet to be set, the shimmering guitars feel like a long lead into a larger outpouring that never actually appears. There is a mystical calm pervading, with only the percussion less patient, seemingly agitated against the ambient drone and tripped out psych.

It portrays an experience of a sightseeing exploration through cosmic clouds and by the end of the song you’re happily lost within them. There’s a cinematic feel to the soaring synths of the following Killing a Dead Eagle, the percussion once again the gravity keeping you from floating away or acting as the mechanical gristle and grind of the vessel you’ve been invited to inhabit on the tour of astral vistas. It’s as much space-rock and drone-psych as post-rock.

By the time the 16-minute They Don’t Need a Reason to Kill You arrives, I’m fully invested in their mission and fully committed to the journey. The track’s length makes sense as it relaxes into a slow, vibrating rhythm. It almost gets lost in its own shining light, its soft cloud airiness, although despite that lightness it still finds a density that sucks you in, so that the ending acts as an awakening where you feel as if a passage of time has disappeared.

It’s hard to explain why you enjoy albums such as this, you simply feel it, as you absorb it you find yourself becoming subconsciously immersed in its aura, its ethos, one of a different plain of understanding.