Artist: Fragmented Memories
Title: Among All Ghosts Ever Returning
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Brumal Orchard Records
I can’t lie, the cover art by Silvana Massa lured me into this album, as Fragmented Memories were a new name to me, but as is often the case if deep care is taken in choosing the art to represent your music, then that care will also be present in the music. This is art, you see. Art requires emotion and thought and resonance and I found it running deep in this album.
‘The Calling’ is indeed that, a gentle and slow beckoning. Not quite an invitation, more a delicate fall of notes over a slow velvet drape of night that will call to those who have the soul to hear it. It is meant for those who may have a place in this world. The text reveals this to concern a woman drawn into a a parallel world where memories are, indeed, fragments to be collected and returned to their owners to help them travel on. ‘Therough Echoing Halls’ begins this with quick steps, soft notes, but the halls themselves, the synths are vast in comparison. They do echo, but not with fear or evil, simply with an emptyness. It is still as we flit through, the only motion our own and memories of waltzes persist in the music, of grand balls perhaps long faded. It is as though we gently trail our fingertips through the memories to help them return.
‘Beyond The Walking’ is the meeting of the sombre side to the calling. There is a drum beat, a hint of a military memory to it. No light dances here. Perhaps something more final. But ‘A quiet Guide’ is met. I find this music… affectionate. The tone is perhaps a little sad, but there is a warm smile wrapped up in the lilting notes and the warmth they sprinkle. Words are not always needed, actions may be quiet but show the way.
‘Returning The Past’ is a beautiful piece of dark ambient. It has a grace and a flow to it, a haunting edge to the way some notes trail away, a blurred light to the entwined melodies as though a mist or a light fog of feint rain hangs in the air. ‘Some Must Fade’ turns down those lights and leaves us helpless, watching as a show we casnnot halt turns slowly and follows a trail we cannot. It’s curious for a song to both make me feel excluded and yet so involved as an observer. Beautiful.
‘Before The Deepening Shadows’ is almost funereal in tone. It recalls for me days long ago when Arcana first swept into the halls with their Dark Age Of Reason. The tune is a lament, the darker background music a mournful train. ‘Among All Ghosts Ever Returning’ is a minimal place, still, a feeling of being lost a little for me. A featureless room with layers of emotion like sandstone, all waiting for something to embrace them and lead them. ‘A Pale Departing’ is, I think, it. A lonely piano, an intermittent swell of synths before a richer, deeper sound softly presses through. It is bittersweet in tone and every note and sway of music is rich with emotion and, I feel, a deep, deep affection. Sometimes things simply are. They cannot be postponed beyond a point and at that point all there is left, is a farewell. We choose how that will be. Leave nothing unsaid, but all can be said with a touch.
This closes with ‘ A Song For Those Lost’, for the ones who could not be found or brought together. Like so much in this world. Something to mark them, though, is needed. An almost hesitant harspichord as soft grey echoes whisper and vanish.
This is such a sweet, gentle, and emotional work. It can offer comfort in a way. It has compassion in the face of loss, and has no pretence as to what more it can do but offer you a hand, an embrace and a wish.
Gizmo
among all ghosts ever returning | Fragmented Memories
among all ghosts ever returning | Fragmented Memories | Brumal Orchard Recordsgrindcore-death-metal
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