Interstellar Absorption

Debut release for Brazilian one-man ambient BM band Uncaladon, this EP is a very heady and mesmerising trip into deep cosmic space. Much of the music is not all that original and sole musician Salem relies a lot on synthesiser but this effort has plenty of good music and deep ominous atmosphere. After a brief introduction of found sound tropicalia, the EP gets stuck into sinister darkspace BM and cavernous void ambience. Initially there's plenty of edgy frying tremolo guitar, background sizzle and steely bass rumble along with the deep black emptiness. Pure-toned keyboard raindrops and menacing growl round off Uncaladon's style. If you're coming with me for the ride, this EP looks very promising. As long as Salem can resist putting in cliched space-ambient tones in the work to tell people that we're in space, this should not be a bad work.

Once we're in space, the synthesiser drone and wash compete for equal time with the menace of rumbling, sizzling BM and tense percussion. As the music steadily builds - this escalation of tension is what Uncaladon does so well - the darkness becomes more menacing and there's some indication that whatever's out in the wide cosmos is preparing to greet us ... with no little hostility and aggression.

Overall this is a good set of steadily simmering BM and keyboard-based space ambience but it does feel incomplete - our journey into the deeper reaches of the universe just goes on and on, with no promise of something eventful happening. While that would ring true in real life, on an EP, this conclusion seems a cop-out. The opening tracks of the EP border on the epic and the music in the first half of the recording has real teeth (and sharp ones too) so the way the work peters out doesn't do it much justice. This EP could have been expanded into a major work meditating on the nature of the universe and what might lie in deep space.