Review Summary: Let your mind see the torment that your ears hear.
Art is commonly agreed to be aesthetic work that intentionally expresses thought for no other purpose than to offer a perspective. Particularly abstract works are often argued to represent more complex thought because it's more difficult to educe the artists perspective from the finished piece. This difficulty is usually the result of overly chaotic or overly simple representation. Though, sometimes, the piece is neither too complex nor too simple and so a spectator or listener's confusion results from a unique and unconventional style meant to offer the representation. One contemporary style, that seemingly breaks almost all musical conventions, is power electronics. Power electronics is sub-genre of music that fits under music's abstract realm and is often misunderstood as simply being noise for the sake of novelty or spite, and is quickly disregarded by many listeners without given a fair hearing. However, more and more it is being listened to out of sheer curiosity as the few artists who care to create power electronics continue to upload or stream their music for free online. As is common when new artistic traditions are born, just like when new information is brought to light, some who come across it are enthralled by their lack of ability to understand it. These bumpkins form power electronics primary audience.
While some power electronic releases sound like an aural montage of varying degrees of erratic dissonance, some are reasonably coherent enough for one to deduce that there is clearly intentional expression. Custodian falls into a category somewhere in the middle of the two ends: a) reasonably coherent, and b) erratic and dissonant. Consequently, it's hard to determine the direction of the music's itinerary, and so naturally forces the listener to think about how the composition comes together. But by the way that each verse (if each segment can even be called a verse) is sequenced, the wandering that is inherent in the style of the music becomes appealing the moment one gives up their natural desire for order and lets their mind wander along with it. In Custodian's case, the music is appealing because it induces visuals that would perhaps be otherwise difficult to have manifest in one's imagination, without the harsh noises resonating in their ear.
Sonance From Detached Life is one of Custodian's most reasonably coherent, and still erratic releases, with just enough order so that the listener doesn't feel as though the work is comprised entirely of arbitrary noise.
By the name of the release's title alone it is clear what sort of journey one will embark on by turning the music on. Though only 12 minutes and 55 seconds long it is enough material to satisfy one's cravings of dissonance for (at the very least) an entire day. It is heavy with ear-pounding harsh noise and will decimate the listener's brain if they haven't heard anything like it before. Those who are regular listeners of power electronics, or music similar to it, will find the music to be better than most other contemporaries, for the reason mentioned earlier that there is a little bit of order to it. The samples and transfused variations of raucous sounds (surprisingly) are like hooks in that the combination of noises resemble the sorts of noises that typical are used to convey familiar feelings like horror and suffering. Though the noises here are obviously constructed, they are akin enough so that they induce some of the emotions mentioned, and others left unstated, like natural versions of these noises would had they not been mixed as they are on this release. The familiarity of these sounds, combined with the dark tone of the album, are what grab the listener's attention.
Aside from the fact that there is some order, an intriguing collection of sounds and a strange tendency to induce visuals in the minds of especially passive listeners, there isn't much else to this album. That's not bad though, considering how heavy with content the near-13 minutes that this album runs for contains. If one is looking for some form of obvious deep meaning in this release then they will miss the point of it.
Sonance From Detached Life, like all other Custodian releases, like all other power electronic releases, and like all other forms of good abstractual art, does not give-away it's perspective. Instead it allows for the possibility that its listener can develop multiple interpretations. No matter how many times one listens to it, there will always be something new and unexpected that they will take-away from the music. For all of the reasons mentioned, I strongly recommend that fans of power electronics check out
Sonance From Detached Life. For people who don't regularly listen to this sort of stuff, I recommend gradually pursuing this sort of music after getting more used to dissonance.
