Travel through any busy metropolis and, while you may be fortunate enough to find moments of relative calm, for the most part it's difficult to escape the noise , information overload and even a sense of menace.
Despite attempts to accommodate human needs, these man-made cityscapes are often cold, harsh places. As centres of production and movement, the effect of the oversaturated technological culture is frequently disturbing.
Poland's Maciej Pasziewicz knows all this and with his second album he gives us a soundtrack that may not entirely console us but shows that something epic and vital can be crafted from this environment.
He has produced an ambient work firmly rooted in 21st century which takes us on a journey deep into the heart of the city yet offers enough breathing space to keep the human spirit alive.
The epic scale of the opening track sets the tone. This is music manufactured to invade the senses. After pressing 'play', the first instinct is to raise the volume and submit to its power. Big City Nights is the first of eleven tracks which blend seamlessly into each other for a symphonic-like work that should be listened to in its entirety to get the full effect.
Each track is unique yet part of the whole. Quantum Theory and the title track stand out for the sheer density of their synthesised beats yet even these still include melodic and accessible passages. The message seems to be that even in apparent chaos there can be harmony.
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A track like Searcher for instance begins with a relative soft organic pulse with suggestions of choral passages before loud pounding rhythms take over. The dissonance is always set alongside a search for something calmer and more balanced.
The sound of Undermathic has strong elements of dark ambient without drowning the listener in melancholia.
Pasziewicz's first album Return To Childhood in 2009, offered hints that he was capable of such heights yet 10:10pm is an altogether a more mature and satisfying piece of work.
There is nothing which tries to be deliberately abrasive or discordant. The backdrop may be a eerie Lynchian industrial drone but this only helps make the melodic passages glow more brightly.
The album ends somewhat incongruously with Sea, the gentle sound of waves giving a hint that another world is possible beyond the urban bleakness.
10:10pm is a work of art. Released on 10/10/10, it seems wholly appropriate that it should merit a 10 star rating.
Undermathic Online
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