Talvihorros/ Damian Valles - Monuments And Ruins (CD)

Ooh, this is well tasty. We've got Talvihorros and Damian Valles each chucking in more than 20 minutes of music on this here split CD. On the Talvihorros “side” Ben Chatwin tinkers away on his guitars, mandolin, viola and Hohner Pianet to construct two lengthy and soothing pieces. 'From Within A Hollow Body (Part I)' opens with ominous, plodding notes, hanging in the air over smooth sheets of organic drone, gradually easing down into a flatter, more rumbly ambience. It's like Nadja playing a Stars of the Lid song. Lovely. The rumbling continues in '... (Part II)', with more of a dark ambient soundscape of metallic screeches and gentle, patient melodies for a hazy, mystical chill-out sesh. Towards the end some delay-heavy guitar chimes and twinkles come in for a nice soft landing. More lovely stuff from Chatwin, basically.

Once that's all over we're into Damian Valles's 22-minute epic 'Hollow Earth Theory', made with guitars, piano, ukulele, computer and microphones. It starts in near silence, just the slightest hint of rumbling...in fact I'm about four minutes in and it's only just got particularly audible, and even now it does kind of sound like there's people moving around downstairs, with occasional string-scrapings and disorienting chimes. It's very detailed, late night ambience with quite a paranoid, skittish feel to it, almost malevolent. It certainly seems like much more of a texture piece than a musical composition, all ominous rumbles and drones which slowly morph into a flat, more trebly orchestra-tuning-up type drone, which is eventually joined by some freeform guitar picking for some dusky new age vibes. Takes a bit of patience to get there, but for late night contemplation through your headphones both contributions here offer mega relaxing times.