• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Oct 10, 2017 Web Exclusive By Matt Conner

Angel Deradoorian’s latest solo release, the six-song mini-album Eternal Recurrence, feels like a sonic exercise. In a way, the EP is a series of six meditative song cycles, minimal compositions that explore darker (and narrower) textures than her previous solo album, 2015’s The Expanding Flower Planet. However, these stark offerings are also quite unsettling, feeling distant like a musical exhibit on display rather than a typical melodic idea easily shared and understood.

Perhaps that’s the goal here, to demand something from the listener. Perhaps the material itself was demanding of Deradoorian, who should be familiar to most from her stints in Dirty Projectors and Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks. The otherworldly drone of “Love Arise” opens the album, a haunting summoning of love to come forth with Deradoorian’s magnificent vocal confessing “Love’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive.” It’s affecting yet not in any expected way if you’re already familiar with Flower Planet or her vocal work with Flying Lotus, Charlie XCX, U2, or Santigold among others.

“Return-Transcend” feels like The Fifth Dimension crafted a song for Shara Worden. “Ausar Temple” is two-and-a-half minutes of water dripping and bells ringing along with random cymbal crashes and light bass drum hits. “Mountainside” opens up a bit more than the rest, yet even it lingers in rayless piano progressions and layered harmonies. Deradoorian’s demands on Eternal Recurrence are likely too heavy for any casual listeners, but appeals as an abstract expression without any longing to connect. (www.anticon.com/artist/deradoorian)

Author rating: 5/10