Review Summary: Where the heart is.
A year ago I predicted a dazzling rise to fame for the
Venn Rain project, and 2012 sure solidified my expectations. Cymatic Symbols is attacking 10 votes as we speak and it won‘t be long before it gets discovered by an unsuspecting contrib and elevated to heights reserved only for the likes of Olafur Arnalds or Black Swan. Even at such a young age, the mastermind behind Venn Rain, Jimmy Billingham has already flooded the sputnik database with a multitude of quality releases, of which Diamond Dust won my heart hardest.
One hell of an opening paragraph, eh?
Emerging from the depths of Fadeaway Tapes where you will fail to find a single mediocre record,
Diamond Dust plays its cards much like its numerous predecessors, namely last year‘s phenomenal Place In World. Lo-fi drones clash against an impenetrable wall of hazy ambient soundscapes and you have to wonder why the *** would anyone jam any other music in its stead. No wonder Jimmy's Place In World was released through a label called TRANQUILITY Tapes. But calling Diamond Dust a mere record would not do it justice. Yes, now comes the transcendence part. You see, the things people hear in Diamond Dust is what they
want to hear. For me, Diamond Dust was the soundtrack to summer, when I blissfully let my worries go and my spirit entered a state of silent contemplation and happiness (it might have also had something to do with hitting the 100th scrobble of Starless that summer, but I won‘t go into that right now). Listening to this album at that time magnified my inner peace and painted beautiful soundcapes in my heart - the drones became young giraffes, galloping the dry ground. The gentle background glitches reflected the sound of their hooves viciously striking the beaten earth, the lo-fi was the dust that emanated from those movements, and the ambient was the landscape which made this whole miracle possible. For others, the record may transform into ocean waves rippling through your ear-and-other holes, or an autumn storm slowly approaching on the horizon. Diamond Dust is what we make it to be.
Diamond Dust is
you.
