ARTIST:
> Kwalijk
ALBUM:
> Stervensbegeleiding
GENRE:
> Minimal / Drone / Dark Ambient
PUBLISHER:
> Witte Dood Records
YEAR:
> 2009
FORMAT:
> 3"-CDR
TOTAL PLAYTIME:
> 22:10
[01]Stervensbegeleiding
AUTHOR:
> M
Kwalijk is a project from the Netherlands that aims to create depressing and minimal soundscapes. They're a new project, this being their debut release. They've also done a split with Tainted Corrosive Mist, which was released some time after this EP.
Stervensbegeleiding, which quite possibly means "Death's lead", is truly meant for headphones. The release starts with a high-pitch, thin and irregularly waving signal-like buzz sound, along with a really low and vast pulsating drone somewhere in the background. These are the sounds that are audible all the time through the release. Up to seven minutes of this record's lenght the soundscape stays interesting only through the signal-sound's constant small changes, and the background drone's calm presence and it's occasional soft but very noticeable "attacks" when it goes up in the mix for a while. Despite the "lack" of "real" variation and the sparse amount of different elements, the soundscape is very captivating.
After seven or so minutes things go less minimal. The drone spends less time in the background and more time on sounding threatening by coming and being more up in the mix, whilst also making slight changes in it's pitch at times to stay interesting. There's occasionally another high signal sound to bring some change to the soundscape, and there's some really low and damp beats and other small atmospheric sounds scattered sparsely on the way. The sounds and the atmosphere vary between calm, eerie and threatening in an unpredictable way. The song doesn't really have a grand finale, there's just a very distinctive beat after which the soundscape turns the way it was in the beginning, until it's hasty fade-out.
This release sounds very refined and, dare I say, delicate. The atmosphere (especially in the beginning) is really fragile, which means that you should listen to this release with as little background noise as possible. If you manage to eliminate the background noises, you'll be on a very captivating journey for the 22 minutes. The flaws of the release come from the more threatening-sounding parts in which the drone is on the top of the mix, simply due to this being in too much contrast between the other sounds. The vast, harsh and damp drone does not work too well together with the a lot more fragile sounds when it takes over them. I don't really see the point in these "attacks", aside from keeping the listener focused - something that would've been achieved by the atmosphere alone.
This is good debut release, for sure. Kwalijk sounds original and has a good concept, but they still have some work to do on refining it further, and to make an even more captivating and unified whole.