trajedesaliva - Ultratumba

trajedesaliva is an experimental industrial, noise, drone, and ambient project from Vigo, Spain. The project's history is one of spontaneous releases as far as I can see on Discogs. Their debut single 'El Cuerpo Y La Ciudad' was released in 1999, while their follow-up album "Mima" released in 2000. Their next album "Mima Blanca" came in 2003 and a split album with Chaos Condensed released in 2006. A lot of silence followed that release until the duo announced their return with "Ultratumba". 

This eight track album has been getting hails from all over the experimental electronic community. Described as a "family dialogue, full of sadness, acceptance and hope, that digs into the origin of melancholy" by the band itself, "Ultratumba" is released by áMarxe, Ferror
'Todo era blanco' kicks off the album with a gorgeous melody of soaring and soothing synthesizers as a soft but beat-driven underbelly gives the track a wonderful groove. Lasting for one-second more than six minutes, it's a blissful piece whose curious notes are at times lost in the cosmos - and yet, they touch so close to home. 'A casa por las vías' continues in the same vein as 'Todo era blanco' and I can easily see it being a companion piece to the previous song. What differs it from the last so much is the spoken word voice that comes in around the one-minute mark. The sinister tone of the backing synths and grim bassline that supports the voice renders it both intimidating yet well-acted. Following the end of the speech, a beat kicks in as static noise and other oddities play out. After a few high-pitched synths, I am led back into the blissful part of the track. This song is nothing short of a rollercoaster and I thoroughly enjoy it. 

'Familia Ferro' is the only song on the album that I found to be incredibly frustrating. Fully embracing noise, it begins with a really high-pitched synth line that is non-stop for about forty-five seconds. A brief bit of noise interjects it a couple of times, repeating this pattern 
until I was led into a static noise wall. Silence, aside from a few metallic clangs and a very slight backing synth, comes next. The rest is a fairly standard noise track filled with walls and further frustrating sounds. Whenever I come back to "Ultratumba", I avoid 'Familia Ferro' as best as possible. 

The following song 'Arenas calientas' manages to blend noise and analogue synths better than on 'Familia Ferro'. There are drone elements, most notably in a background synth, but the upfront noise sounds that rumble and break are not ear-shattering. They are well put together sounds that compliment the eerie atmosphere very well. I very much enjoyed the ambiance on 'Mamá es un animal morado'. The broken sounding synth line in the beginning that lasts for around a minute or so, accented the song well. There is a brief moment in the song, around the four-minute and ten-second mark, where I thought the shrieking synth grew too loud for it's own good. Thankfully it only lasts for, as I said, a brief moment before dissipating into nothingness.

trajedesaliva continued to invoke unknown emotions in me on 'Mammillaria sempervivi'. I find this one hard to explain; the emotive drums and percussion elements, though sparse, definitively sucked me into the track. The chill ambiance among it is icing on the cake.  'Queremos verte' is not a bad song by any means, but it is not trajedesaliva's most breathtaking piece. It's a bit flat and not as experimental as the others on "Ultratumba", but it gets the job done. The final piece on the album is the title track. I don't think there's much more praise I can bestow upon trajedesaliva's work at this point; their mixture of experimental electronics, ambiance, spoken word clarity, and industrial mechanics is impressive and the title track carries that impact to the very end. 

Despite my issue with 'Familia Ferror' and my lack of enthusiasm for 'Queremos verte', I found enjoyment in the rest of the album. A human element is among the electronic noise that I found within, and so long as it's touching my soul than I care not to interpret an album literally. The goosebumps on my skin were enough to show me that trajedesaliva had managed to do a terrific job with "Ultratumba". Every time I slap on my headphones to listen to the album I find myself in a state of sheer Nirvana. I highly recommend it and give it a well deserved eight-out-of-ten. 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
May 26 2021