Beach Sloth

Dendrite – Time Immemorial 7.3

                Dendrite’s music broods. This is heavy music. No melodies, no rhythms, nothing interrupts the quiet sadness of this sound. Images of reality emerge out of the digital ether but these only add to the mood. Everything on ‘Time Immemorial’ is so static time appears to slow down while listening. Since the album is completely uniform in terms of texture and mood it appears to be a slowly morphing stream of sound. 

                The introduction ‘Void’ is the harshest part of the album. Beginning with frantic noise it is full of nervous energy. For the second track ‘Transmission’ is closer to the general template of the album: static drones matched with field recordings. Indeed the field recordings on this are gorgeous. Dendrite takes ordinary sounds, whether of nature or basic environments, and transforms them into anxious things. ‘Familiar’ does a particularly fine job of morphing into a rather evil cloud of sound. On ‘Consumption’ Dendrite even manages to include the sounds of broken electronics into the mix. ‘Leviathan’ offers the best of Dendrite’s talents. Here the sounds are particularly claustrophobic. Distorted samples are beyond comprehension. They sound like they are coming out of large airport speakers, barely decipherable. Quick switches in and out of the stream of words give it a particularly creepy edge. 

                No light comes in during the duration of the album. Everything, even the field recordings, is covered in clouds of light static noise and drone. Consider this the blackest hole of sound. Hope does not live in these songs. All things sink down into the mire in these songs. And that is Dendrite’s greatest charm: the ability to explore this mood in every possible way.