Benjamin Finger is a rather prolific electronic artist based in Oslo and one who has spilt his largesse across numerous labels in the last ten or so years. KrysaliSound is the latest recipient and Auditory Colors is a miasma of drifting tones, mystery vocals and snatched, hallucinatory moments.
There are many instruments at play here as well as field recordings, and “alien objects” that move the pieces from mood to mood. Opener “Echo Haze” has angelic but directionless vocals from Inga-Lill Farstad that drift in the blissful sound of space, echoing and refracting, diffuse and scattered. Inga’s voice is so far removed from reality that it is as if transmitting from so far away. Sounds shuffle and dock around her on “Haunted Regrets”; it is hesitant but peaceful, as if surrounded by ghosts in an empty station, and this ability to conjure up imagery makes it compelling, and sounds seem to move at will, ebbing and flowing out of reach, the voice like a sprite.
The use of vocals on this album is fantastic. They take on an ethereal mood with the dusty loops on “See See See” vanishing into the air; they elude meaning, yet have some kind of universal sense that evolves subtly as the rack progresses. The whole journey comes to an end with the slow guitar figure of “In Isolatum”, the sounds of the fretboard encircled by an impressionistic wash. It is pretty and measured with sharp tones grabbing your attention. You can almost hear the dust on the pickups as the track drifts into silence and the disc ends.
-Mr Olivetti-