Dark Ambient Review: Metta
Review by Casey Douglass
I first came across the
word “Metta” through Buddhist loving-kindness meditation. Reading
Metta was the title of Dronny Darko and ProtoU’s latest dark
ambient release, alongside its Buddha statue in the mist album art...
I thought I had a hint as to how this album would sound. I was kind
of right, but also pleasantly wrong.
Metta makes
fantastic use of field-recordings, particularly wind, water, thunder
and rain. There are also many instances of bird song and insect
calls. For me, these sounds painted a picture of a wet and humid
tropical jungle, with misty valleys and fast flowing rivers racing
past leafy temples and precarious rope bridges. I just got a mental
image of Indiana Jones in the bridge fight near the end of the Temple
of Doom. I don’t mean that
kind of experience, but I hope you understand what I’m getting at.
Something
I noticed that I also rather enjoyed was the way that certain of the
field-recordings ebbed and flowed as various tracks progress. From
the very first track: Energy Forms, and throughout various others,
you might be listening to rushing water, it will fall away and then
come back a short time later. Or you might be listening to rainfall
during Secret Skin and notice that it has gone, only for it to come
back anew. I felt this “long duration pulsing” of the large
field-recorded elements really helped draw the attention and helped
to keep things fresh. It also lent a nice rhythm to things.
Speaking
of rhythm, there are a number of occurrences of drumbeats in Metta,
strongly bringing to mind the kind of drums that you might hear being
played in a ritual setting. An element I particularly enjoyed was the
way that the beats often had an echoey quality to them, as if being
played in a cave. There are also instances of chant-like vocals,
shouts, or simply distant voices. I did half wonder if there would be
more chanting, based on the album title and artwork, and there were
less than I might have thought. It doesn’t matter one bit to me,
the field-recordings and other elements are strong enough to create
some lovely soundscapes.
If
I had to choose a favourite track, I think it would be Astral Winds.
It opens with the rustling sound of wind, and it gave me a strong
mental impression of a crinkly brown leaf slowly being blown across a
stone floor. Maybe a temple courtyard that hasn’t been swept for
some time? The mixture of the drone that arises and other sounds,
turned the soundscape quite dark for me. I had the impression of
shuffling shadows, heard an electronic “spinning up” kind of
sound, and also a possible hint of distant voices and sigh-like
vocals.
Metta is
described as a “spiritual successor” to Dronny Darko and ProtoU’s
previous collaboration: Earth Songs, which happens to be one
of my most played albums in recent years. Whereas Earth Songs
tracks, for the most part, vary more in feeling and tone, I think the
tracks on Metta are more tightly linked by their
field-recordings. This doesn’t mean anything good or bad, it's just a
highlighting of the differences. If someone forced me to choose
between the two, I still currently favour Earth Songs but it’s
incredibly early days in my getting acquainted with Metta.
Metta is a
smooth trip into a wet, contemplative tropical space, where bird
calls and drums mingle with elemental forces and human existence. The
soundscapes are full of movement and life, and the feeling, for me,
was one of taking a step back, taking a breath, and gaining a more
holistic view of reality.
Visit Metta on
Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out Astral Winds
below:
I was given a review copy of this album.
Album Title:
Metta
Album Artist:
Dronny Darko & ProtoU
Label: Cryo
Chamber
Released: 23
June, 2020
