Randall Kaplan - Born

What is immediately noticeable about dark ambient and experimental producer Randall Kaplan's debut single 'Born' is the spacious and three-dimensional audio he presents in his work. The opening of 'Born' has a whirring, cosmic sound that bounced from the right side of my headphone to the left one. It's as if an intense blackness was all that was able to be seen with a stringent light source all the way in the back. A high pitched synth line adds to the creepy structure of the track until a screech ends it and brought me into experimental industrial territory. 



The panicked sounds of someone trying to speak added to the horror, but the sheer intense atmosphere was shattered. Blasts of synthetic noise hit out at random intervals which was not to my taste, and a bit of a rhythm played underneath it all. This eventually faded out into a trickle of scattering, claw like legs. Or, at least that's the best way I can describe it. Breathing is heard, there's a sense of nothingness lingering about, and it eventually fades out towards the seven minute mark. To me, the last two minutes of the song were the worst. There's barely a sound to be heard, just a very, very quiet and miniscule synth line that sees us out of the song. To me, on each repeated listen, this final section of the song was a waste of time. 

'Born' is a polarizing track for me. The first three minutes of the song are stellar and have what I consider to be cosmic horror vibes about it; it was spooky, tense, and atmospheric. Once the experimental and industrial elements began to play, I felt as if the track took a step down. There's really no rhyme or reason to any of it though it does sound as if Kaplan so desperately wants there to be one. The following segment, featuring the breathing and the scattering of some creature, was interesting to say the very least, but needed more meat to establish an audio connection with me. The final bit of the track, the last two minutes, are not enjoyable at all; after I had listened to 'Born' four times, I began to skip over the final two minutes. That being said, Kaplan's production is not terrible; he does have an ear for high quality sound and every bit of noise that hit my headphones came out pristine. So, after spending a bit of time with 'Born', I give it a five-and-a-half out of ten. Talent's present, but it's not executed as good as it should have been. 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
Apr 04 2021