180° - Submental [Splitrec. 029]

Coming in from the Australian imprint Splitrec. as the labels' cat.no. 029 only recently was "Submental", the first ever album by the new trio named 180° which is comprised of Jim Denley, Nick Ashwood and Amanda Stewart. With Denley and Stewart sharing a musical history since the late 80s and Ashwood and Denley connecting over the course of three years before forming the group, 180° utilize their long standing connection as musicians to cook up an intense and most experimental menu of eight tunes which possibly make up the most leftfield, unique, outstanding and threatening release on Splitrec. so far, with prepared guitar and pitched down bass flute providing a vantablack DarkAmbient meets Tribal backdrop for Amanda Stewart's hypnotic Spoken Word sequences and further rhythmic non-vocalisms which, in their rhythmicity, seem to hark back to the chants of Australia's aboriginal people at times whilst at others, especially in the deep, minimalist and partly PostRock-reminiscing outing that is "Oblique" even touch one's innermost soul at a very seductive, intimate note with a velvety tone and quasi-singing approach. Furthermore, cuts like the subsequent "Isosceles" introduce a kind of wistful melancholia alongside a certain form of tender musical romanticism and thrilling, slightly varied rhythmic repetition, "Acute" somewhat seems to describe a mental state on the brink to madness whilst "Degenerate" seems to capture outerdimensional hissings from the deepest, lightless vaults of the ultraworld just to name a few. Recommended, this!

Album artwork on Instagram!