Masterful audio craft-work brings together conceptual purpose and all-encompassing design, as Utrenja Ensemble delivers an unrivaled and haunting collection of works, for Spirit Of This Age.
Beginning with the wave-like rise and fall of unsettling distant tones, voices and darkness, Rise of the Cherubim showcase the approach of a composer devoted to a particular story and sentiment. Utrenja Ensemble captures a moment in time, presenting a sense of being still within a spiraling realm of other-worldly beings – effected in a manner that feels almost church-like for its use of reverb and distance.
The project continues with this darker twist of intrigue, but proves musically eclectic in a manner that’s as unexpected as the opening track. Ghosts of The Upcoming Technocracy adopts a retro synth bass-line and similar breath-like pulses of echoing voices and implications. Doncaster 2051 furthers this with meandering sci-fi style lines of chaos amidst organ-like calm.
Defiantly unlike anything else you’ll listen to this season, Utrenja Ensemble’s Spirit Of This Age reflects upon contemporary societal struggles and mass cynicism, in a way that’s as disconcerting as it ought to be – and as thought-provoking, too.
Download or stream Spirit Of This Age. Find Utrenja Ensemble on Instagram & Twitter.