c.db.sn - ...At The End of it All

Try as I might to confine this album to just one mood, I cannot do so. Straight out of Denver, Colorado comes a work which is part celestial, part terrestrial and thoroughly enjoyable. It begins in a spacey manner which belies the warmth at it's center with some very icy atmospheres let out to play. If this is just the debut, then imagine what heights Mr. Dobson will reach given more time at this sort of thing. He clearly has a vision for what sound this record is meant to achieve and nails it with suitable aplomb; I'd never have expected something of this nature (and believe me, it does chronicle many forms of nature) to emerge from the mile high enclave. While the city he is from is very cosmopolitan, it's worth noting that the state surrounding it contains some of the most hostile terrain you could hope to encounter. Perhaps this is why, more than anything else, I feel as though I'm in the eye of the storm while listening to '...At The End of it All'.

On one hand, I find quite the cornucopia of organic synthesis running this way and that with gentle bleeps underpinning softly swelling waves of warbling pads. On the other side of it, I'm cut up into bite sized pieces by the jagged, urgently regimented beats. You cannot dance to this, you can, however, let down your guard and unwind your mind throughout the fifty plus minute run of sensory delights this release is crammed to the gills with. I can taste the low hanging fog over a near frozen lake while some songs are playing and look up and down lonely, abandoned rural lanes during others. One doesn't like to indulge in vagaries but this is a collection of very hazy, languid compositions. Lots of slowly decaying instrumentation is put into play with the sharply focused rhythms being all that gives these tracks shape. Insularity is another constant which runs roughshod all throughout the proceedings. I feel quite isolated and alone when I play this album, quietly putting the day in order... cataloging my thoughts in secret whilst the ivy outside advances in silence.

But there are some songs on this album which go well beyond merely disconnecting you from your surroundings, the choppy slow burner entitled "Artificial Intelligence" is straight up interstellar exploration. You sit beneath a clear, star filled sky to this at your peril. Like a vortex sprung out of the depths of your own subconscious, it pulls you in; colorfully and wildly it oscillates like the blistering saturnine grace of a flock of Vultures circling closer and closer to the carrion below. To have one's mind picked so cleanly with this kind of efficiency is daunting. Caught up in the glimmering of those cosmic sentinels, you don't notice how much of yourself has fallen away, leaving only the most basic components of your genetic make-up intact; accessing the very core of primitive instinctual memory, acknowledging our reptilian origin. The narrowing of Saurian eyes, coldly appraising their nemesis.

As a room that's clad in low light just after twilight, this album exudes a graceful almost tranquil environment. For a time. Until the air itself begins to crackle and shimmer, a heavily hanging scent of cinnamon shrouds our senses during the proceedings and all around us if you listen intently enough you'll make out the sound of a million insect wings furiously beating, clawing at the very molecules we cannot see. It is as though every nuance of cellular connectivity in my body is standing on end, having been given sentience for a short while. Imagine running through a field of stinging nettles and thorny undergrowth while the sound of Crickets becomes louder and more engulfing, here we find ourselves... Feb 07 2012