is a dark and tortuous experimental sound epic
twisted around Brian Lang's narrative prowess
Unorthodox – The refined instrumentation and the sui generis vocal approach are the entry points and at the same time the keystone that provide the distinctive features of this sophisticated release.
The mystery that surrounds and embraces all 16 tracks on the album is a particular aesthetic styling cue that, like a leitmotiv running throughout the whole release, is fueled by dark and melancholic choral harmonies unfolded in the midst of dense soundscapes.
The creative unicum that Ehret craves, caresses, feeds, pursues and finally sets free in the sound spectrum is a debated narrative argument, which with anguish makes its way and finds its thrust in a tone that is as much personal as full-bodied and unified. A flair with a distinctive, individualistic drift, which emerges from the ground step by step, track after track, rising from a dense and multifaceted form that simmers and paws softly in the distance, in the background.
Here the elements of an avant-garde kind of electronic and a more traditional folk are combined in experimental sets, theatrically unraveled between the songwriting and the spoken words evoked by Ehret, giving life to a truly all-inclusive full-length album. ‘Gleaner’ presents itself as an elaborate research that revises a vibrant range of nuances, updates them and takes them to the next, contemporary, and relatable level.
An intense drama – The marriage of the songwriting with Ehret’s spoken words is the additional flavor that enhances the delivery of the entire album.
The compositional formulation of ‘Gleaner’ circulates in an atavistic and obstinate way, persevering in a virtuous circle of poetry, emotionally and passionately keyed in an enveloping emotional flow that slowly, yet incessantly and inexorably, makes its way into our perception, with the specific purpose of getting to touch and make vibrate the most hidden and ancestral strings of our consciousness.
An example of this comes with the second track ‘Sow’. Here the reflection of this conceptualization comes to us in all its incorporeal tangibility. The plucked strings of a violin that combines that sense of ephemeral density, ethereal and at the same time material, accompany those of the guitars, that are present as an everlasting warning throughout the whole album.
The seal to all this is Ehret’s dark orchestration, minimal on the surface and yet sophisticated in its simplicity. It is the touch that manages to give further depth to the heavy and disturbing vision of the entire album, giving further outlet to the perspective of the delivery that this inspired artist offers us with ‘Gleaner’, set as it is in a mesmeric contemporary non-place.
A primeval journey – Ehret’s digression is a primeval journey sonically portrayed in the form of an emotional auditory escape, which sees us wandering in precarious balance on that fine line that is the state of being.
Meandering in a totalizing nothingness, in search of a sense of a clarity for everything, ‘Gleaner’ gives form and explanation to an idea, shaped in sound, until it becomes a meaning that expresses what apparently appears inexpressible.
A sense of everything, as puzzling as it is present, that finds its pulse in a rose of compositional finesse, as in the beat of the drum on ‘Through the Dark’, reproduced on a passive but incessant Udu.
Of course, ‘Gleaner’ is a demanding listening experience that requires concentration to be captured in all its inspired essence. But it is precisely here where the point lies, because it is only after overcoming the effort to reach the summit, and only after having overcome the fear of going beyond the point of no return, that we will be able to benefit from a new and unimagined point of view.
Listen now to ‘Gleaner’, the full-length concept album from Ehret, available for streaming on all the major digital platforms. Find your preferred one via album.link/WsRHcCwhXk548
To know more about Ehret and his music, find and follow him all over the web by checking the links below: