The End Of The World Championship – Balance Beam I (Sacred Phrases)
This dude put out one of my favorite drone records from last year, the In Slow Motion tape on Umor Rex, it was his debut and it was phenomenal, and Balance Beam is now his third release (I missed his second, oops) and it’s every bit as excellent as you’d hope for after hearing that debut, this is more of his mega monolith drone, hugely dense & blissfully minimal, this is the drone that others should aspire to, beyond what we have come to know as Drone, TEOTWC is working a transcendent magick that brings subtle tonal shifts and overwhelming walls of buzz & hum to new heights, slowly & discretely adding hidden layers of beauty, it feels like it builds up so much that it has to collapse in on itself creating a black hole of minimalism except it somehow stays afloat, offering moments of clarity & euphoria amid the crushing weight of maximum volume, but there is a darkness in these sounds, a deep bleakness that resonates in my core, struggling to see the other side and never quite making it, so yeah, this is blissful in it’s hypnosis but supremely melancholic, and absolutely fucking perfect, this is my favorite kind of drone and it’s done incredibly well. Now it’s time for TEOTWC to get some vinyl in the works.