Badgerlore - Of Things Too Sorrowful to be Reminded of and Things Too Beautiful to Possess
(Free Porcupine Society)
The ongoing partnership between Rob Fisk (7 Year Rabbit Cycle) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) that is Badgerlore is a darkly elegiac one, and their output of eerie, barren improvisation and naked invocations is partially documented on this album, which spans the years 1998 to 2003. The disc is unsettling, but oddly calming; and exudes both feelings of extreme intimacy and interminable distance. Deep chimes ring out over the scratching and scrabbling of trebly, distorted guitar, as minute sounds mingle with rich, full resonance. At times, the distorted guitar, which I'd guess to be Fisk's, becomes more active, squealing and wailing in brief, harsh eruptions that mark the music with blunt disarray, or puncturing the more languid strumming with mini-salvoes of jagged noise. Chasny and Fisk's vocals are subdued, ghostly accompaniments to the music, subtly melodic and reminiscent of an air usually found in religious paeans. The pathos of Badgerlore's music, in their most effective moments, is hard to ignore, and Of Things too Sorrowful to be Reminded of and Things too Beautiful to Possess rings with emotion that, though not explicitly mournful, casts a dark shadow over the music. The album's best moments are some of its more restrained, times when the desolate beauty of the music is allowed to breathe and exist without interruption. This isn't to say that the noisier sections of these songs are an unfailing detriment to the music, but when the two personalities within the music work in concert, the results can be impressive. The hypnotic qualities of the less busy, more tranquil periods of the disc are its most effective.
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