Fescal - Two Winter Poems

Stop! Alert! If you are the person that cannot activate your imagination, this album is not for you. Better stop reading this review and find yourself a better entertainment.

But if you classify yourself as the one that lets his thoughts to drift in wide directions from time to time, I am sure you will not be disappointed with the material that South Korean fella under the code-name Fescal presents through his new mini-EP which came out of the doors of an extremely productive label Dronarivm records during the end of the last year.

If you are familiar with drone ambient genre, than you will definitely agree with my statement that this music is all about the small and even minor things, every single detail is very important in the image creation process, every detail can reveal a storm of emotions. A material doesn't have to shine with its complexity, because the radiance is also a matter of inner energy and the ability of the listener to dive into the lake of minimalism.

That's why, when I think about the concentration on details, I mean 'Two Winter Poems' by Fescal. The conceptual idea of this album is built on two very famous poems by Alexandr Pushkin, while the artist tries to create a kind of a soundtrack for them. The details start to pop up right from the packaging and I am sure that the guy invested a lot of time in the design itself. To give an idea, "an illustration by Mark Coates, a small plastic bag containing bush twigs from which Korean traditional tea can be made, one small 9.5 x 9.5.cm polaroid photo of a statue of Alexandr Pushkin and a small age-old folk page booklet along with a few extra whatchamacallits thrown in for good measure. Each box contains something unique and individual" (taken from official press release). All those small items really contribute their emotional impulse to the listening process, creating a kind of a preface atmosphere.

Keeping this preface in mind, I dive into the very special meditative experience that flows out of my speakers. The first composition is called "Winter Morning" and morning for sure it is. What is so significant to all drone ambient albums around, presents here as well. A clear droning loop fills the air constantly drifting over and over again creating a basement for the sound manipulation. This wide organ-kind loop raises memories of an extremely cold but quiet morning, when the air vibrates of its freshness and one can even feel a slow breath of a sleeping nature all around and gentle bites of a sharp gust; all the feelings and emotions are covered with snow, lying untouched and frozen somewhere beneath. Here the concentration of the small details is much more important, because this is tones and half-tones - the players that Fescal is operating with. Slow hidden melody rolls over the basic drone creating some areas of tension in this composition.

The same techniques a transformed into "Winter Evening", but colored with much darker colors. If the first track seemed to be painted with milky white and light blue tones, the second one is kept inside dark blue and grey pallet. Admiring the beauty of visual minimalism that is so significant to Russian winter, the author succeeds to transfer this admiration into one solid piece of sound minimalism. All the elements are bound together with the beauty of sleepy nature, with the hum of the wind playing inside the winter forest, with the depth of the frozen river slowly running its waters under the thick layer of ice, with the angry snow storm that conquers the world around and drives small humans to hide inside their houses.

Don't be afraid to explore the world of your imagination, spread the wings of your unconscious and let the memories to drive you into the world of snow and ice seen through the prism of 'Two Winter Poems'. Jun 05 2013