Sphingida are Igor Orlovskiy & Yulia Levchenko from the Ukraine and they present to us Origin, their debut album. Origin is a mix of slow (ketamine) trance and downbeat, touching on progressive and with a lot of ambient atmospheres. It is a triumphant debut for this Ukrainian duo, the quality of every track is very high, it’s different from most other stuff out there and it is packed full of atmosphere. People often ask me to recommend them some upbeat music that has the same atmospheres that it seems you get more with ambient and chillout music. Well, this is a perfect example of that. The more upbeat tracks retain a lot of ambience, with soft background noises, drones and space for the music to move. The music is very visual and descriptive and right from the first few notes it painted a story in my head. Sunset Sign starts with an ambient intro and it feels like I am standing on a cold seashore, gulls flying overhead and watching the waves crash against the shore. When the beats kick in it does nothing to shake this atmosphere which is quite impressive as they are very strong beats. The rest of the album is similar, strong beats that don’t ruin the atmospheres lovingly created in the background.
The stories painted in my head are numerous, ranging from standing on my own seashore on a grey drizzly day watching the ocean go in and out, through floating through space being surrounded by ripples of energy tearing through the fabric of space, to standing on an alien planet and floating through the air among the clouds. All the tracks are very involved, deep and hypnotic. A lot of the melodies used are fairly simple but they gain their dreamlike power from this simplicity, creating atmospheres you can get lost in rather than shouting "look at me, I’m a melody". Subtle might be a good word but they are still quite noticeable and enjoyable for the people who need melodies in every track they listen to. The synth work is very impressive, sometimes being very slick and smooth, at other times being rough and abrasive, but always very acidic and trippy.
My favourite tracks are Spaceworld (T3), which makes me feel like I am floating above some alien world not dissimilar to our own but still with that feeling that things are just not right; Toxic Memory (T4) is a fantastically descriptive track and makes me feel like I am standing in a war torn world with brown skies and the synths feel like the acid rain falling down from this polluted sky stripping me bare; Springled Planet (T7) also makes me think rain, but this time it’s a cascade of sonic downpours, big fat alien rain that manages to fall all around me, but never on me; and In The Algae (T9) which is more downbeat, but feels like solar bubbles rippling through space and time altering the reality of the fabric it touches. |
