DENSELAND - "Chunk" [mosz022]
Their music is radically intense, charged with energy, crackling. Yet Denseland's energy doesn't come from what is typically called "power".
On the contrary, Denseland masters the art of reduction. There's a brief clattering or scratching over the strings now and then; otherwise,
the scaffolding of bass and drums remains skilled yet spare, so that nodes of density emerge even more dramatically.
One of the most expressive vocal artists of our time, David Moss, adapts himself completely to this art of restraint, reducing his voice to whispers, murmurs, rasps and mutterings, using it like a code incomprehensible to outsiders.
In a kind of secret language, Moss communicates with the other musicians through pithy onomatopoetic play with the voice as resonator, rather than with the expressive vocal extremes he is known for.
Stylistically it's impossible to pin down the territory of Denseland. While elements of free improvisation enter into the pieces, they are nonetheless quite clearly structured and self-contained. A powerful bass and driving drums are
the deeply anchored framework and starting point for the trio's mutual prowl around each other - hinting at song structures without ever allowing them to coalesce into a conventional song. So the tension remains, filled with "animalistic"
and tribal sounds that never become concrete, never refer to anything. This music is evolution and motion. It is activity rather than a product.
If you want, you can find references to the gray area between free improvisation and post-punk, bands like Material, The Golden Palominos, The Pop Group ... yet all that only offers at most a vague orientation,
since Denseland's form is more open and without a rock-like structure, uses pauses cleverly as a stylistic device to give their music even more presence, and hints here and there at traces of dub. It all creates a seductive groove,
never demanding, never pushy, but subtle, dusky, ambiguous and intense. (Denseland)
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