Review Summary: tectonic
Waft certainly don’t make it very difficult for the amateur reviewer. It turns out that the
well, in a nutshell description is right there on the Bandcamp page: a “cacophonous concoction of field recordings, bass and improvised percussion.” With the ‘cacophony’ part and improvised performance it's probably no surprise this release is pretty chaotic. However it actually is structured in a way - albeit haphazardly - the junk-metal-sounding percussive bookends feeling like workers hastily applying steel anchoring elements onto an unstable, looming hillside. It might be that the fun dynamic comes from the efforts to ‘force’ structure on some earthy, primordial form (in this case, the noisy, droning, rushing field recordings and bass).
As hinted by the kind of imagery and language used so far, there’s a kind of brutishness and heaviness created by the music here. Explicitly in the smashing-crashing-shrieking metal sounds and also implicitly in the underlying core of noise. The latter is showcased in the middle of the release, given space away from the clamorous banging and allowing the subsumed droning tones and noise to come through (by turns dull fuzz and scratching static). There’s the potential for a really harrowing musical experience with these elements - unfortunately that’s just not in this sub-twelve-minute EP. It is absolutely an enjoyable/interesting piece of music, although I think they might have done themselves a disservice in that this feels a bit like a throwaway, fleeting experiment. With the same earth-shaking components I wonder if Waft could prolong some of the moments here and perhaps allow the music to become something hypnotic, brooding, crushing and perhaps ultimately more satisfying.
