Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - Track 5

If the music of Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom is cinematic in its essence, the way their songs unfold into soundscapes and conjure up serene images, it’s because the visual is inextricable to their work, whatever form it takes. The two artists—previous collaborators on magic shows, sculptures, performance pieces, modern dance and, yes, films—initially began making music to score their own video creations, so it follows that the compositions they’ve since created are both sonically and visually expressive, bringing to mind moving pictures and static images. In 2005, Gonzalez and Russom released The Days of Mars, an album inspired by “everything from Alice Coltrane to acid-house, Santeria ritual music to the kosmische side of krautrock,” and filled with warm, spacey, almost tactile music from Russom’s self-built analog synthesizers. The album’s four songs sounded not unlike a soundtrack for an imagined film. The same can be said of “Track 5,” a previously unreleased single meant for The Days of Mars, but ultimately deemed out of place on the record. It begins with the slow reveal of a repeating electronic ring atop a rising, falling, sine-curving synth. With each additional layer—a piercing, urgent synthesizer; a deep, continuous, ever-expanding rumble; the sound of a guitar, awash in reverb—the atmosphere thickens. It’s both restless and placid, anxious and tranquil. Just over ten minutes in length, the track closes with a chorus of high-pitched synths that fade to a sparse, darkened end. This 12-inch, very likely Gonzalez and Russom’s last, also features a remix from Âme, comprised of Germany’s Kristian Beyer and Frank Wiedemann. The house duo wholly transforms the A-side into a track so unrecognizable it seems brand new, taking it far from the introspective dreamworld to a dance party in the sweaty, blissed-out, wee hours of the morning.

• Remix by Germany’s Âme (Kristian Beyer and Frank Wiedemann)

• Russom has also released music on DFA under the names Crystal Ark, Black Meteoric Star and Black Leotard Front

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