’Night’ by Darwin Raymond is part of the Feedback Loop Label. The album is based on the events leading to and succeeding his wife’s death and, as Leonardo Rosado explains on the accompanying bio – explores how a single moment of extreme sadness or joy is surrounded by blurry but nonetheless memorable situations and actions and how the present is affected by memories of the past. Raymond pays homage to his own personal moment of pain but never allows the hint of optimism or redemption to disappear. Each track had one or more overlayed immediately afer recording in an effort to capture the feelings of each distinct time.
For me at least, ambient music is much more enjoyable with some sort of context in which to hear it. Much like a soundtrack for a film, you find yourself imagining what Raymond went through when he was making the album and suddenly the music makes sense. For example on ‘Riverside’ the fuzzy drone that outcompetes the other sounds is almost like the buzz of silence after something violent and shocking. The period of stillness where everything seems to have a slight hum, a residual vibration after a disturbance. The event is somehow still present despite time moving on. Reading the aims of the album which Raymond outlines on his website I would say this is exactly the kind of thing he was aiming for. A superb, haunting work which deserves some thought beyond casual listening.
Night is available from Bandcamp to stream or you can download the album here.