The skeletal structure of the album is baring the eccentricities of the components of audible vulnerability
Undressing a camaraderie of senses, Songs From The Bath is an ethereal proverb of movement, composition and modulation. Fluid and infinite in an endless narrative of memory and mind-shifts unto thy maker, Thor Rixon has bared the detailing of his craft in a rare and disarming manner. Textures and abstract thought fill the latest 7-track album by taking us on a futuristic ride into the vast sphere of neo – psychedelic electronica – overloaded with jazz influences and a multitude of sounds to accompany you on your voyage into unknown musical realms.
The tangible tendency of the live performance of ‘the drain’ wormed its way into the brittle severity of emotional weight in my body. It’s digital presence has been on repeat since it’s release. Swaying with the complementary negative and calculated spaces and the crevices of Hlasko’s brevity of vocal strength evoked a pace my heart found immense majestic connection to. Thor has a knack of contributing his signature precision while complimenting the notes and moods of those around him. Hlasko’s presence on this track feels like the echo of an echo: his occupancy is other worldly and of a nature that tears you away from the layers one keeps handing over to the physical world. His truism is that who melts away the dissonance keeps the spirits wide awake. It’s hard not to be in awe of the temperament and sacred essence of another realm his contribution advances in its listeners.
The skeletal structure of the album is baring the eccentricities of the components of audible vulnerability. Itai Hakim – whose voice reigns through vocal resonance and poetic repose aids to the essence Thor is creating in ‘puddles’. There is pain. There is melancholy. There is momentum. Apt to the title, the track dissipates the energy with its sound dripping into dew, ‘puddles’ lounges jazz by lifting it into a contemporary condition.
Subtle cross pollinating sub-genres confront each slot so simply into this narrative, which is evident in the variety Alice Phoebe Lou carries while sharing herself with friend and collaborator Thor. In ‘death’, a richer and varied pace voice carries through from Alice. Creating texture, while visceral tones are submerged below and beside her, this novel attribute is an exact sentiment of transition, a goodbye and ending to former selves and identity. The chemistry between Thor and Alice is evident, on stage and concretely in an audible foundation. Alice showcases a varietal of tempo and ritual-like psalms her vocal flutter instinctively creates.
After seeing Olmo play a solo set, as an opener act for Alice Phoebe Lou a few days after Thor’s album launch, I have more context to the sequence and separation of chords that play with the negative spaces of this dreamy, shadowed and ghostly curative process. Unsettling in the most unfamiliar and intriguing way, ‘softly in the distance’ tweaks the ears and lungs and fills them with spiritual ticks of the island mind, the one besotted with empty croaks and kinks of a world beside or unknown, and it hangs on me, like the lyric: “I look forward to living in nothingness with you.”
Nuanced from the most current to the very aged, it feels possible to experience the heavy and the light in this medium. ‘A surprisingly aggressive interpretation of the universe expanding and contracting’ is timeless in ambience. It makes me feel both rejuvenated and drained, soaking in its absurdities and sound aesthetics as it continues in its story.
It makes me want to create. Something of significance. Something that lives afloat and alive.
Technically, Songs From The Bath’s sound and narrative is on point, which is something we have to come to expect and admire from Thor, but this album would not reach its height and breadth without its contributors. He has attracted and diversified his network, including them not only in his work, but a compass of a continuing timeline of legacy and lineage.
