Artist: Løra
Title: Chamber Of Obsidian Dreams
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Sokol Keep
Ok, now this…. this is getting ridiculous. I have no idea how this is even possible for a debut. To me as a none musician it literally is beyond my comprehension. How this comes out of…well Bandcamp says Indonesia…with no previous foundations is simply stunning.
Enough for the babbling Gizmo, what the bloody hell is it?
I’m not sure this is even that much adjacent to dungeon synth, and yet it kind of is as who else would be so excited and welcoming of such a beast than dungeon synth fans? This is classical, orchestral, symphonic in sound and film, game, whatever soundtrack in style. And it is bewilderingly adept. And, oh, the confidence and clear love of the music in themselves is a joy.
‘Midnight Sonata’ eases us in gently with a gentle piano melody, a swell of a beautifully arrange orchestra before the choir sens a shiver of the religious, or gothic through me. It swells like the prelude to the climax of a film and yet…this is just the beginning. And so with ‘Black Rose Minuet’ we take a little step back. Sweet, beautifully hesitant musical steps like a debutante, shy at first, taking the hold of their partner and all their fear washing away as the crowds fafe and only they can see only their partner and feel only the dance. The arrangements here are already simply stunning. Orchestral in the fullest meaning with string and woodwind and brass and percussion layered and conducted with a flowing grace.
Grace. Yes that’s it. This music has the grace of the finest film music, and of opulent fantasy and medieval courtly love. And of things darker and stranger.
‘Carnival Of Phantasmgoria’ brings an eerie vocal sound to it with a string section which is both gorgeous and that wonderfully, dark, slightly off kilter feel with the drivingstaccatto percussion and unexpected weird melodic detours. Like a gradually more unhinged dance of the dead, the doomed and the delightedly weird… full moons, sparse clouds.
The title track opens with a refrain that is hauntingly, naggingly familiar. An echo of ‘Hushabye Mountain’ of all things. A lullaby… but it bursts into such a vibrant life and light before dancing into a slow twirl where the dancer is beautifully self absorbed and so full of sunlight and passion. It is so beautiful, so moving…
‘Nocturne For A Broken Mask’ has such a fragile beginning; vocals trembling but the grandeur and the sweep of the marching melody like the arrive of some army turning swiftly into a grand, imperial mass waltz… That pomp, that ceremony is just delicious and cannot fail to bring a smile and a little surge through your heart. It should be in some 1950s technicolour epic, Taras Bulba, Ben Hur, The Prisoner of Zenda…and yet there is also that feel, that veil of the delicate magic too.
‘Dance With A Pale Moon’ seems hesitantly playful at first but the brass sounds bring a sedate, considered style to the dance. Confidence builds and the dance becomes bold and louder. By this time the delicate stapes become much more playful and a teasing sadness willing to be brightened by the pale light becomes all. ‘The Marionette’s Soliloquy’ is a mini ballet. A twirling composition of dextrous footwork and arrangement…
‘Rhapsody Of The Hollow Cr(l)own’ is a curious affair not least in the title. The music has that sway and that rise and fall and yet the theme to me has a deep thread of melancholy through it. Perhaps its own hollow soul is known and it searched for meaning, or pehraps it is watching the faded ghost of something once great perform foolishly to try and maintain the aspect of splendour. Who knows. The percusion sound is so on point as ever though its…quite unbelieveable.
‘Arcane Symphony In Ash’ is a more haunted affair. The trumpet is curious, almost Western film music in style but the flourish of the waltz once more brings the ghost of the ourtly dance once more. Fluid, graceful and dramatic and condensing an entire soundtrack into under five minutes is ridiculous, impossible and yet here we are.
We close with ‘The Last Serenade’. A bittersweet goodbye. A slow, mournful moment as the curtains tense to descend and leave me wondering what I have just heard.
Within this album I hear little moments, ghostly refrains of films I have seen and their music. But the lasting impression here is the sound. The arrangements, the production is… uncanny, ridiculously accomplished and hard to believe that such skill is out there, unknown in this strange little world we inhabit. But on the other hand I have come across other equally ridiculous talents in other areas of music, musicians who have also left me speechless. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and simply dive in because this could be the start of something extraordinary..
Gizmo
