It gets under your skin right away. Elena Botts’s,
erm, haunting voice drifts over sound
sources like chimes or gongs, hit every four bars or so (emphasis on the “or so”),
on the opening track “Stillborn,” till they’re processed and accompanied by
field recordings played as textured noise. Botts masters the space in which her
voice appears, clearly favoring the vastness of what’s outside of her in
contrast to the still, small voice that occupies the corners, acting as a
running commentary to everything else beyond it that does not notice it. Maybe
her voice is the “light” within the “hauntings” of the tactile world, the focal
point for wayfarers in need of guidance through the gloom. Then again, maybe it’s
just a siren song, luring us in further until what haunts us is upon us, and we
merge in cold corruption in an anti-flare of terror and gloom. How shocking!
As the Unknown Sound Collective, Botts and
company take elusive approaches to composition, but it’s all rooted in Botts’s
vocal performance. Sometimes traditional percussion cuts through the gloom, and
piano isn’t an unwelcome guest itself. But it’s mostly the field recordings and
other samples that really lend a sense of mood and tone, whether they’re
anachronistic (traffic sound meets pagan chant?) or logically aligned (struck ceramic
orb meets pagan chant?). But the content isn’t as important as the atmosphere,
and The Light within the Hauntings,
despite sounding exactly the way that title sounds, is a rich nocturnal world
in which a single point of focus exists, and you’re drawn to it, whether
directly or gradually. Either way, the Unknown Sound Collective has you right
where it wants you.
https://theunknownsoundcollective.bandcamp.com/
https://orbtapes.bandcamp.com/
--Ryan
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