Even Butterflies Make A Sound / The Collapse Of Everything
This album is the final chapter for progressive post-rock outfit Kontakte.
Having sadly lost founder member Stuart Low in 2020, it fell to Ian Griffiths to organise a suitable tribute to his many years of musical service. This meant trawling through those part-finished recordings that Stuart had left and working on those with the assistance of previous members Gary McDermott and Ben Worth to produce a finale that would work as a legacy for Stuart and also for the group.
Looking for a way of making this release particularly special, they hit on the idea of producing two separate discs that, although very different in feel, were synchronised in such a way that they could both be enjoyed separately; or if the listener had the facility, could be played simultaneously, producing a far richer and more immersive experience.
Thankfully, although the equipment at home is far from ideal, a small portable CD player could be rigged up in the same room as the main stereo and with these, I was able to take full-ish advantage of Ian’s fine idea. The two discs have very different atmospheres; where one is more song-based with diverse guitar-orientated workouts, backed up by synths, drum machine and bass, the other is more textural, relying heavily on drones to evoke distant clouded atmospheres.When you put these two together, a real magic does start to take effect with the sense of momentum dreamlike from the outset. The interaction of sounds is electrifying, but the sense of plumbing far-reaching depths is unavoidable. The background tones highlight the ragged guitar landscapes and dust blows across distorted visions. The heavy guitar wails and shrieks with the second disc drone allowing the first disc guitar to concentrate on evoking a more tortured, wilder experience. The squalls of feedback are allied to dark ’80s drum machine with drifts of warm synth and devilish one-note bass highlighting the profusion of ideas.
The textures arrive from all sides; but when things begin to quieten down, the drone shines through, lending the air of a post-battle warzone, sounds choking on dusty trails, a sense of solitude, not disagreeable but emptying. Seen from a distance, the quiet chapters contain minute details heard in the far depths of a distant system. You feel the removed interest of watching the final departures of a blasted civilisation. Over a layer of nuclear fall-out drone, sci-fi synths and blasted beats emerge. Worried voices merge with the sizzling guitar, portentous in a Nine Inch Nails kind of way, with a strange sense of pressure that drifts in and out. You can really feel that extra layer of sound. Elsewhere, languorous Godspeed You! Black Emperor-style guitar is enhanced by simmering drone and these drones become multi-layered; so where you might be focussing on the guitar, its strength becomes diminished as the drone attempts to overwhelm. Playing with the volume changes the way you experience these things and because of that there is an almost endless set of variables.You could swell the volume of the drone and let it run distorted and rampant across the guitarscapes or you could do the reverse and just have the drones distant and quiet, like the lick of surf as you concentrate on the ingenuity and integrity of the more structured elements. There are moments where as you focus on the guitar so the drone appears like a tsunami, dissipating the power of the guitars and drowning you in its relative stasis.
Along with the more prog-influenced guitar explosions that ascend into frazzled overload, there are some really pretty little figures that rely purely on their delicate tone to ensnare the listener and a contrail of drone might be added to complement rather than submerge it. In other places, the emotional resonance of one circling guitar figure kept giving me flashbacks, the purity of tone clearing all that went before and leaving me grasping for some long-overlooked memory.-Mr Olivetti-
In memory of our friend Stuart Low.
