SND - Atavism
I truly believe that the music generated by SND is and forever will be relevant for an objectivist and honest music explorer. The material that the band has put out throughout the years has been coined as the “musical superlative” and we shouldn’t accept anything lesser than that. Atavism specifically encompasses everything that is musical, though in an unorthodox, almost extreme fashion.
The name of the album leaves no space for any other interpretation, as it is what it stands for — purely atavistic and skeletal structures. Very often a track will not feature more than an amalgam of 5 rhythmically variated sounds, progressing in cutoff and sustain. The sonic scape of the album is as well very limited in choices of sounds, it is a predominantly a drum and string album, though one should not expect carefully orchestrated smooth Pendereckian strings, we’re speaking of analogue synthesised strings, something you’d expect a Buchla would generate.
What I believe the challenge of the album was, mainly refers to creating unique and complicated patterns with profound musical value. Over the years I’ve never hesitated to share this album with people, who may appreciate its beauty, yet sometimes with an intention to push one’s musical limits and I’d say that 90% of the times, the first two or three tracks were the most of what the person’s musical experience with SND would end with, being shocked of the audacity to have recorded what rather sounds like a jammed floppy disk. Yet the other 10% didn’t necessarily dive into a musical bliss they’ve been able to appreciate the originality of the approach and sometimes have an impressed, almost shocked visage. That is what I, if I may, think was the essence of Atavism. It’s surprising and, although sometimes too overwhelming and blunt, a deeply emotional set of music.
An interesting metaphor explored by SND in this album is the total lack of names for the track. The album comprises 16 tracks that go by the name of “Untitled”. The way I see it, the artists make a suggestion to non-implication. It is obvious the they write their music, it is obvious that they care for every minor detail of every track and not record some beautiful accidents while in the studio, as many people may want to believe, but the idea is that they let the music be just music, nothing more, nothing less, thus pushing the human factor out of the grand scheme of the album.
