Bass Communion - Loss (2006)

Dark Ambient Drone/ Minimalist

Another fantastic album from Bass Communion.

Loss is a dark, twisted and brilliantly conceptual effort with complex layering and textures. It explores the emotions surrounding loss, grief and mourning in the living and a ghostly, haunting remnants of the dead in a person's mind or the environment.

There are no electronic samples used on this album, the sounds are either instruments or field samples. The first side starts with the instant realisation of loss. A single moment in which the grief starts and descends into melancholy – possibly represented by the girl on the album cover. The dissonant, lonely piano at the start throws you right in whilst haunting samples and ambient noise are gradually introduced until the piano dissapears and is replaced by an open, surreal soundscape. Side 2 is the decent into madness with the piano now concentrating on the much lower frequency with distant swirling ambient noise.

This is a brave and ambitious endeavour, to interpret using sound the manifestations of the thoughts and processes of the mind when struggling with intense and inconceivable melancholy of the loss of a loved one and, in some cases, the permanent damage to the metal health of the grieving. The emotions explored in this work are so surreal and subjective, that words can barely suffice to explain it. Only music such as this brings it out and visualises these feelings in a person's consciousness.

If this appeals to you, I highly recommend buying the CD as it contains a 24 bit high resolution stereo mix and a 5.1 mix so this work can be listened to as it was intended.

Link