Sirhan Duran is the ambient drone side project of Jeramy and Peter of Voyager One. Their self-titled debut features five lengthy drones augmented by three remixes. Chris Martin of Kinski plays guitar on two of the songs as well as contributes one of the remixes under his Ampbuzz moniker. The sound of this release is a mix of five years ago Kranky and ten years ago Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, and the key words here are "subtlety" and "patience." Almost nothing on this record jumps out at you, and any and all details are hidden beneath a shimmering sheen. The album's first track, "Axon Loves Dendrite," reminds me a lot of Tomorrowland: very spacey, mildly industrial, and highly repetitive. And also totally not to my tastes, as the main bass tone sounds a lot like an off-balance washing machine, and there is no noticeable variation to the repeating tones over the track's eight minutes. "Back to Berlin" is a lot livelier, but still comes off sounding subtle because the sound is mixed such that the main melodies are towered over by the feedback and percussive sounds. Once the song seeps in through your ears, there's at least three drones going on here, all intertwined, making for a very enveloping track. The next two tracks are much more accessible: "Fading By 909" has a very appropriate title as the drums are loud and hard—almost danceable—and "Electronic Guidance Counselor" is the most pop, using prominent melodies and distorted vocal samples that wouldn't sound out of place on the next Voyager One record. The album's final non-remix is "Removing Silence" and is the most glacial of the drones, sounding like Depths-era Windy and Carl. The three remixes continue the feel of the original tracks and are hard to pick out as remixes if you're not aware. As a whole, this album works as a good drone record should work: calming and soothing enough that its a good wind-down record for late at night, and with enough detail that it's also a good match for the middle of the day. However, a great drone record should have moments where the intensity of sound or repetition overwhelms the senses, and Sirhan Duran isn't able to achieve that here.
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