Suspended between two black holes, feeling stretched to the breaking point but refusing to let go, a surprising harmony emerges. Orgone Donor’s dense Two Maps as Parallel Mirrors is an entrenched sonic cleansing pulled through sharp corridors and expansive landscapes. This trio of Keith Wecker, Riley Reason, and Dustin Williams used remote collaboration techniques to assemble this engaging, and at times hellish, sound document.
Two Maps as Parallel Mirrors is made up of two side-long excursions. On the first, “The Comfort of False Memories,” synths and electronics purr, obscuring the jagged edges underneath. Oscillations that rise like black waves in the night fill the view, creating a murky background for Wecker’s lilting saxophone convolutions. Aqueous shimmers descend from oblivion accenting Wecker’s growing helix, a downiness emerging to offer a moment of respite before the subterranean spaces grow.
“Lamb Sun,” the flipside, is warmer, with an uneasy, but hopeful tone. Saxophone swims through reverb fields as undulating electronics grow in confidence and scope providing a lush foundation. This piece is a valley where Wecker hollers with urgency on either side of the divide, but in the lowlands, there is a calmness. Spectral drones float on a subsonic bed, moving in unison and pulling back the reigns to keep chaos at bay, whispering with hollow breath. As it moves up the other side, Wecker’s sax reemerges like a blast furnace. Alive with determination, the trio pushes to the top, ready to look back on the hard path behind.
Two Maps as Parallel Mirrors has a surprisingly gentle cadence. It moves through darkened passages and drowns any meditative glances in walls of aural carnage all while keeping a spot open at the table for anyone willing to listen. I love the combination of impenetrable electronics and saxophone and Orgone Donor soaks in that zone with assurance. This is stellar.
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