Review Summary: Equal parts ethereal and gruesomely realistic, Boring Bathtimes produces one of 2017s most sensational listening experiences.
Boring Bathtimes isn’t your average singer-songwriter. This much can be deduced just by looking at the tracklist for ‘Loss’, his third full length effort: the album consists of one forty-eight minute song which ebbs and flows in all manner of directions. On the artist’s Bandcamp page he describes the album as being: “one that simultaneously humanises the feelings of loss and isolation as well as tackling my disdain for the human need to compulsively leech onto others to overcome it.” This context is absolutely vital when listening to the album, as it proves to greatly enhance the emotional impact radiating out of each nook and cranny within.
The album emerges smoothly with gently-plucked acoustic strings layered beneath rich vocal harmonies, immediately creating a unique and almost ineffable atmosphere. The guitar melodies themselves almost seem rather charming in their minimalistic fragility. Likewise, the assumed male and female vocal harmonies are saccharine and cohesive, but when the odd pessimistic lyric lifts through the blanket of reverb (“this pain is everywhere”), the atmosphere that envelops is so subtly unsettling. It’s not quite ‘ethereal’ but it certainly isn’t exactly ‘earthly’ either, almost as though it’s a soundtrack for being on the edge of sleep where the mind is hanging between two states of consciousness.
This atmosphere gradually twists and contorts through multiple dynamic shifts; delicate piano keys and saxophones elegantly edge into the mix in seemingly improvisational directions before consolidating to produce one of the album’s more rhythmic, jazz-influenced sections. However it’s after this where the record really bursts into life, as a single, sinister synthesised note slowly expands into a sprawling twenty minute drone. This drone itself appears to be comprised of two halves, an absurdly harsh volume swell of a variety of noises - united only by their bleakness - eventually subsiding into a more minimalistic drone.
The noises emerging throughout the first half of this drone are chillingly executed. Swathes of static, machinery, intense human shouting and even a car vehicle horn echoing through a tunnel produce a mind-bending descent into madness which soars into the stratosphere in its pure volume . It’s an atonal mess which could be described as ‘beautiful’ if not for its sheer earth-shattering realism. It doesn’t represent the concept of loss in a sanitised, sentimental way. It uniquely portrays harrowing emotions one can only ever realistically expect to experience a few times in their life. It’s so morbid, yet so real.
The way in which this wall of sound dissolves into a more austere, barren drone is itself remarkable, so powerful in its delivery as to evoke images of passing through the ‘wall’ of death. Above the ambience of the wavering drone and the wordless vocal melodies that simmer at the base of this section lie layers of saxophones completely drenched in reverb, flittering between various eastern-tinged melodies. Once again the atmosphere is ineffable, the pure emotion that bleeds out of each and every note seeming to come from another dimension at times.
All of this softens into a more familiar tone as a plodding bass-line and glistening, reverb-soaked licks intertwine before exploding into colourful detail in the album’s distorted finale. Languid power chords lay beneath more melodic lead lines and interlock with the drums to create a real sense of rhythm, but the lo-fi nature of the recording means that unfortunately this closing section feels like a rather anti-climactic way to end the album. Despite the engaging nature of the music itself, the production makes the guitars sound thin, not quite matching the density and urgency of the previous sections of the album. However, this proves to be a fairly impertinent issue when considering the quality of everything that preceded it.
To put it simply ‘Loss’ is not an ‘easy’ album to listen to in any sense of the word. Sonically the mix of drone, folk, jazz and post-rock is as challenging as it is rewarding, but it’s the emotional strength of this album that proves to be its biggest challenge. The pure ease with which the drone section sucks you in relentlessly before gently releasing you is one of the biggest musical achievements of 2017 thus far, and the way in which Boring Bathtimes weaves these cacophonous nightmares with the album’s more ethereal and tranquil moments is both seamless and stunning. Overall it’s a record which will undoubtedly be grossly overlooked in the grand scheme of things, but for those with an open mind who are craving a uniquely cathartic musical experience, look no further than ‘Loss’.
