SPLINTERS, VOL. I: TREMOR

This is the first prog album I have bought from 2021, and as such obviously up to now the best. Furthermore it tops all I have heard from 2019 and 2020 and would ultimately be a very worthy winner of the year.

The Battlestations are listed as Post Rock because of their history but are for some time on a journey to progressive electronic, which on this album they have properly completed. There are no drums on this album and no guitar that sounds like one, it's all electronic including some samples, so based on this album hardly anyone would classify the as post/math rock.

Not only is the album electronic, it is excellent at that. It has the same experimental spirit that can be found in the early work of the pioneers of the genre, think of Tangerine Dream's masterpieces Zeit and Phaedra. I mention these two because from Zeit to Phaedra TD introduced the rhythmic sequencer, and Battlestations here balance more ambient soundscapes and rhythmic, more structured parts in a masterful way. Post rock sensitivity can be heard to some extent in the relaxed approach and the pleasant tonal motifs that make the album more accessible than more radical experimental electronic work, still avoiding anything like clear melodies or a traditional song structure.

Splinters Vol. I is just a single piece of 43 minutes. Sound generation amd sampling of course is done using twenty-first century standards, distinguishing the album from early electronic work. It is an atmospheric, slow developing work that features sound experimentation, meditative parts, but also sequencer-like repetitive rhythms and some harmonic material. It is richer in ideas than much of this genre; although the music takes its time to transform from one part to the next, there is plenty to discover. Something that sets this album apart is the musicality by which the different parts have been woven together; everything feels organic and smooth, but it is far from minimalism or drone. People may call it "ambient", but to listen to it like ambient music would mean missing much of what's going on. It is basically a more friendly and warm version of experimental electronic which in other work can come over as quite intellectual and cold.

Different motifs and structures come and go, held together by an overarching approach to sounds, always reminding us that happiness and sadness and all the often strange and unexpected but at some point familiar things in life are only a small and transient part of something bigger that was before we were and will still be after we have gone.

Approach with caution if you're not into electronic and experimental stuff, but I say 5 stars hands down.