Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O’Malley, Randall Dunn - Shade Themes from Kairos (2014)

Shade Themes from Kairos is an extension of the soundtrack project that Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O’Malley, and Randall Dunn undertook for Alexis Destoop’s short film Kairos in 2009.
After that work was completed, the trio decamped from a makeshift studio in Belgium to Dunn’s now defunct ALEPH studio in Seattle. Dunn was originally hired to co-produce and engineer the sessions, but his knowledge of analog synths and sonic textures, and his instinctive spatial approach to sound became integral and he became not an outlying participant, but a full collaborator.
There are five pieces here; the shortest lasting over eight-and-a-half minutes, the longest over 21. Musically, this set is more structured than initial impression might suggest. Movement, duration and aural evolution are architectural aspects in each track. While opener “That Space Between” (also known as a bardo) commences with loose ambient synths and two-note guitar drones, drums soon establish a rhythmic pulse to erect circular waves, gradually spiraling without losing the center. Noisy analog flanges and layers of distortion eventually claim the middle of the mix before two guitars come angling through and into and one another. That guitar interplay is the heart of “Temporal, Eponymous,” which rolls out like an extension of the previous track with compelling rhythmic invention and more elongated atmospheric textures before approaching a psych squall that claims the track’s structural body. “Circumstances of Faith” is a tense, striated ambient track for more than five of its 13-plus minutes; it’s all hues and shadows of loosely defined sound. The subdued but frenetic bassline emerges from the margin, and imprecise wah-wah guitar introduces guest Tor Dietrichson’s frenetic tabla playing, which becomes its engine, framed by all manner of wafting and careening noise. “Sometimes” is a welcome break in the action, a carefully considered architecture of drift and space, while closer “Enemy Pagoda” makes use of low-tuned basses and guitars to introduce a sense of pure dread in drones that are highlighted by analog synth. It never wavers from its path of menacing haunt. Shade Themes from Kairos is striking in that it not only hosts a variety of tones and colors based on dynamics, textures, and yes, the illusory stretching of time, but it reflects a true collaboration by principals who are actually investigating what the possibilities of the latter might sound like were it actually possible.