Valiska- Repetitions [Review]

Valiska- Repetitions

Genre: ambient, drone, noise

Listen: Bandcamp

As much as I listen to music, I rarely make other associations with it. Generally, when I think of a song, I hear the music, and I see the album artwork. So you can imagine my surprise as throughout the opening trio of tracks of the Calgary based ambient and drone project Valiska's "Repetitions", actual words started popping into my head to describe the music. In the back half of opener "Clearing", with its sparse droning sounds (I can't identify the instrument) the word that came to mind was "serene". While that may seem like an obvious thing to say about a peaceful ambient album, it really does describe the complete feeling of peacefulness that rides over you as you take in the sounds. However, it doesn't seem that "Clearing" has enough steam in the way of ideas to justify its 7:49 runtime. It closes out on a whimper, with some reversed piano, a sound that recurs throughout the record, but without building on the previous repetitions. Judging by the title of the record, the recurring instrumentation was probably intended as a theme, but overall it doesn't do much other than be kind of boring by the end. 

This isn't to say there aren't a few high points. "Glide" which opens with a gorgeous piano line and steadily builds with a type of low horn (french horn, maybe?) providing a very nice counterpoint. The climax of the track features an organ coming in and what it brings with it is chaos. The pieces don't slide together musically, and I'm not sure if it works or not. It's calming and disconcerting at the same time, which is an interesting combination, and one I'm not sure I like. The outro of "Dawn" has a similar effect, with a pulsating bassline that doesn't seem to be exactly in the scale (if there is one) of what's going on with the rest of the song. "Held" has a nice opening organ line, but again devolves into a chaotic sort of half enjoyable/half confusing mess. 

The rest of the album doesn't have much to talk about. It's not bad for background music, but it doesn't demand much attention and it gets pretty boring by the middle of the album, which isn't even particularly long (41 minutes). The chaos doesn't do much for me, the calm parts are either gorgeous or boring, with little in between. 

While it sounds like I hate the album, I definitely didn't, and in fact upon first listening, I enjoyed it. Admittedly, that first listen was while I was also helping to install an air conditioner, so the music was background music, and it didn't stand up on a more concentrated second listen. 

Overall verdict is that while it has nice moments, and overall is a nice listen, it doesn't demand attention, and I can tag it with the damning "background music" label. I may even come back and listen to it more, but after a couple of listens, it doesn't stand up. 

Two tracks I've had on repetition: "Glide" and "Escape"

Overall album score: 56/100

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