Past Inside the Present has offered up several beguiling collaborative albums this year and Color of Time stands right there with the best of them. This duo of Nick Turner (aka Tyresta) and Kévin Séry (aka From Overseas) ride an underwater current deep into hidden worlds on the ocean floor. Life moves in circles on Color of Time and the astral clock begins to turn backward, swaying beneath the aural gravity that Turner and Séry spread like magic. This is music to carry us forward.
Tidal pools glow with floating shapes on the entrancing slipstream of “Cold Air.” Synths blur any movement, obscuring the underlying mechanisms of propulsion to the naked eye, but guitar strings vibrate at lightspeed causing our bodies to swim ahead. Vocal echoes bounce through aqueous caverns, an angel choir willing the dawn to come again. It’s as though we’re stuck in clear glass, watching streaks of light surf the night sky like strings pulling the universe back into view.
Blue-green waves turn into a wash of autumn leaves on “Radiance” as sonic laments float past the horizon in the light of sunset. Fading like ghosts in daylight, a sweetly intricate ballet unfolds between clouds as the world below ignites. There’s a somber thread woven within “Radiance;” an acceptance of fate’s cruel turn and an acknowledgment that the brightest hope lies above. Hypnotic loops curve around a shimmering beacon of guitar drone lulling us back to our dreams.
Color of Time has a focused sonic palette, but the subtlety is a strength that heightens the emotional pull of the album. In the somber reaches of closer “We Did This To Ourselves,” our lives become disentangled from our actions and the result is inescapable. Guitar passages burn out the last vestiges of green and the gentle warmth becomes an inferno. The duo reminds us that our time here has always been limited, but between these gilded aural valleys we push down on the accelerator and let these prismatic tones dissipate our spirits into the next life.
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