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The Floating World : the wood beyond the world Maximize

The Floating World : the wood beyond the world

  • CYCLIC LAW
  • Release Year 2013
  • 8 Tracks, 54 Minutes
  • CD in Four Panel Digipack

More details

2nd Eclipse

13,90 €

The Japanese term ‘ukiyo,’ translated as ‘the floating world,’ was used to describe the pleasure seeking urban culture of Edo Japan. When alternately rendered as ‘sorrowful world’ the term took on Buddhist connotations, indicating the transitory nature of human experience, the ephemerality of existence. These two seemingly opposed yet sympathetic concepts have always heavily informed the music of The Floating World and each album has been created with these as central themes. Named for a novel by William Morris, The Wood Beyond the World is The Floating World’s latest album and an attempt to capture the journey from the mundane to the illusory made by the novel’s protagonist – a journey that reflects the hunt for the temporal and intangible the band’s name intimates. With the addition of Neddal Ayad (guitar; Desolation Singers/Great Attractor) and Grey Malkin (drones, bells, piano; The Hare and the Moon), as full members who have brought additional nuance to the music, this ambition is more fully realized. Amanda’s delicate, melancholy flute parts now weave in and out of Neddal’s hazy guitar and Grey’s eerie and dissonant accompaniments – the whole underpinned by various rough field recordings used to compliment and counterpoint the music. Roy Felps (Korperschwache) also guests on the album, adding drifting acoustic guitar to a song. Amanda has also collaborated with Lacus Somniorum, New Risen Throne, Far Black Furlong, Dodson and Fog, The Joy of Nature and The Hare and the Moon. She and Neddal have another band together, Secrets to the Sea, as well.


LISTEN TO AN ALBUM PREVIEW


REVIEW
Looking out onto the open sea must be similar to what The Floating World have bequeathed us on their second album. There's no other way to look at it, the vastness, the emptiness, the barren waves rising and falling mile after mile. Without an end, without limit. Even if you are on shore, there is just something which draws you towards the slowly receding tides. To walk into them, to feel that cold snap of an embrace that won't let you go and chills your blood to the bone. In maritime lore there is often the mention of bells sounding from the depths; drowned souls who are doomed to ring out their fate until the ending of the world. Could this be why they sound so often and so piercingly on this record? There are a myriad of influences and styles which co-mingle on "The Wood Beyond The World". I liken their final result to that of a curry composed of many different components. You have your base with the curry paste, sauce and coconut milk (that would translate to drones, echoes and reverberations) over which you then add whatever it is you choose to in order to bring out the maximum amount of flavor in your dish. What The Floating World have done is to take this basis and then throw post-rock, experiments in acoustical space, ritual tones and whispered vocals on top of it. They let their eight compositions stew and simmer exceedingly well. This is no sloppily underdeveloped collection, everything is right where it needs to be.What I like best about what I'm hearing is how quickly this one plays through, it's just so well planned out. You'll swear you just put it on and just like that it's over. So you get up and walk over to play it again but then you realize you just did that as well. The shifting sound field this group - for lack of a better word, sorry if I got it wrong - weave with their performances alters time... and space. Every single time I listen I'm hearing something new, and every time I try to pin it down another one takes it's place and throws me off the scent. I'd love to be able to definitively nail down what it is which makes "The Wood Beyond The World" such an engaging release but it won't let me.So much is going on with this! It's as though each member went in to do their bit without having heard what the others did and then somehow - damn do I wish I could figure this out - it was integrated into one dynamically ensnaring series. How they knew precisely where to cut each piece is simply beyond me, I never could have managed it. Oh and before I go saunter off into the ether again, Amanda Votta is involved in this project. So if you hold the one (give us more, damnit!) album Lacus Somniorum has done in high regard, now you have your hint as to what to expect. Even this is feasible only by the barest of threads as this is a wildly diverse record. Enjoy. ( Marks)