Composer and producer Richard Hare has compiled a uniquely creative, expressive new album, built from non-traditional or non-musical sounds, which have been altered and mixed into an original soundtrack. The project attempts to explore the thoughts, feelings and experiences, of someone who is struggling with depression, issues relating to not fitting in, and suicidal thoughts.
The sixteen-track collection moves through industrial layers of rhythm and unrecognizable audio intricacies, creating dark, often unsettling arenas of sound, which offer a sort of theatrical deep-dive into the mind-set of a person lost in such struggles. It’s a fascinating project, each track titled with a single provocative, intriguing word, and each one proceeding to venture outwards into its own unpredictable realms of depth and isolated strangeness.
Rhythm is a key aspect throughout, these often mechanical beats creating a grinding pulse that helps keep a human connection alive and well at the centre of the experience. Elsewhere the layers are cold, uncomfortable, presenting a sense of quiet and space but with compelling sudden fragments and additionally rhythmic moments that inflict a sense of urgency and uncontrollable movement.
As the journey progresses, audio experimentation evolves further, and moments like Duplicitous, and later Precarious, re-capture any wandering attention with a kind of distant, effected sense of uncertainty, and a calmer pace – even nearly stopping briefly, to haunting results.
As suggested earlier, you get the impression there could be some hypnotic visuals to accompany this project – a theatre performance, a series of videos. In any case, this isn’t music to be taken lightly, but it’s a brilliantly interesting portrayal of the depths of human struggle and the vast nothingness that weighs down on a tired and lonely existence. Well worth your consideration.
Download the album via iTunes or Google. Find & follow Richard Hare on Twitter & Instagram or visit his Website.
