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It’s not very often that such beautifully melodic ambient music is found outside of Hollywood; in fact it almost seems that the two concepts would be mutually exclusive. Either you have an ambient mood which should be more about conveying a landscape, or you have a melody which should be something that you can dance to. For the second day in a row, I’m glad my misconceptions have been proven wrong.

Transmutation is Disparition’s latest release that has been in the works for more than a year and a half. By combining dark synth sounds with a piano that might seem too “light” at first, each song stands alone telling a story of a post-apocalyptic world, where anarchy is the only true form of rule. In your mind, you can easily picture near-chaos mixed with fear; buildings burning, rubble everywhere.

The disc opens with the very dark, but still uplifting “Atom and If” whose title is rather fitting, as the name is a play on the names of the two people in the Garden of Eden: Adam and Eve. The choice of words though, seems to represent a more scientific take on it, which would explain the buildup, yet with an almost scientific preciseness that only a robot from the year 2284AD could deliver.

If the entire album is a search for freedom in the world that has since been reduced to near-nothingness, “Locke and Demosthenes” would be it’s antithesis. While every other song on the album seems to have a very negative view on where society is headed, “Locke & Demosthenes” portrays a very different view; one where enough effort can yield fantastic results. The melody gives a sense of almost celebration, which I can only imagine would become the anthem of salvation in an otherwise destroyed planet.

After listening to it for nearly 3 hours, I still cannot come up with a bad thing to say about this album. The time and energy that Disparition put into it is very apparent, and even though it was a completely solo project, it comes across as full and rounded. Not only is the song writing incredibly unique and well pieced together, the production quality of the entire record definitely feels professional through and through. Definitely recommended if you want to experience what life could be like after World War III.

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I’ve been on this Earth for 24 years. In that 24 years, I have tried to force myself to believe in a higher power; in God. I’ve always struggled with this belief because I’ve had in my head this notion that if we can’t see it, how can we prove its there, as if the proof of God would have convinced me otherwise.

You see, I’ve always been some form of atheist. Whether it just be the fact that I do not believe God and that’s it, or more recently my belief in determinism (more on that in another post), I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that there was “someone watching over us.”

A few years ago, I started getting interested in theoretical physics. In particular, the work of Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking really caught my attention. Now, I’m not sure which of them tried to explain it, as my collection of books are in storage in Calgary, but regardless, one of them tried to explain the concept of infinity.

Contrary to popular belief, Infinity isn’t a number. It’s not like you can count to infinity for obvious reasons, but when you really think about it, infinity is quite literally everything. When you say “infinity”, even if it’s in the context of math, you’re not just talking about some impossibly huge number; you’re talking about everything that exists, every particle of space. Not only does whatever you’re thinking of occupy some “large space”, but you would cease to exist, because whatever you’re imagining is now taking up the space you would (or could) take up. It takes up the space that the piece of paper you’re writing on currently does.

Why is this relevant? Well, up until now, my brain has had the idea that infinity and God are mutally exclusive; if you have a universe that extends infinitely in every direction, how could God manage to control everything everywhere? There’s just too much out there. Now if you’ll notice, I had the belief that God had to control everything. After thinking about it quite a bit, I’m pretty sure that was just my teenaged mind trying to rebel against the authority; if God has that much power, he must be trying to abuse it (e.g. control everything.) However, I’ve since come to realize that just because God may exist, it doesn’t mean anything other than he is (or may be) watching.

Maybe I’m finally progressing past the rage-against-the-machine/rise-against-authority stage that nearly every person in their late teens and/or early 20s seems to go through. Maybe all the stories about religion in the news lately have slowly been penetrating my brain and I am subconsciously trying to become a part of their “club.” Hell, maybe Santa finally gave me the gift of schizophrenia that I have been so desperately wanting these past few years (even if it is a few months late).

I guess the uncertainty that after I die there may or may not be something waiting for me is the only part that has me concerned. Not that I’m scared of there being nothing – if there’s nothing, I have nothing to be worried about – nor am I scared of there being something (I’d like to think that I’ve cancelled out at least most of the bad things I’ve done with good deeds, treating people with respect, etc). I’m just concerned about the lack of knowing one way or another. Damn near everything out there has a scientifically provable outcome; you put your hand on a red hot stove and every time, you will burn your hand. The afterlife (or lack thereof) is the single unprovable outcome to an event and that in and of itself is the scariest thing of all.

But my friend Denny Crane (a TV character from ABC’s TV show “Boston Legal“) also made an incredibly good point in this week’s episode: “If you believe in God and it turns out there’s no God, there’s no harm, no foul. But if you don’t believe in God, and it turns out there is one — you’re screwed.” Touché.

Over the weekend, I was spending time on my favorite internet forum SomethingAwful, and was presented with the opportunity to listen to a brand new album that one of a member had just finished recording. At first, I was a little apprehensive. I don’t usually like downloading full albums before I get the chance to hear a sample or two so as not to waste valuable time and disk space. But something about it grabbed me. I’m not sure if it was the title (“Sun Tales”), or the fact that it was simply labelled “Folk-Rock”; all I know is that for the first the first time in a long time, I’m glad my first instincts were wrong.

As I waited for the album to download, I started reading the reviews that fellow forumgoers had given him. The first comment in the thread was by someone going by the moniker Toastmaker; he wrote “A completely beautiful album.”

Well, that’s a good start.

The second comment, by JohnnySnitch, reads “Very nice album!” So, ok, maybe this won’t be a complete waste of time. On and on through the thread, the compliments keep coming, with nary a bad word amongst them. At this point, I was definitely over my so-called fear, and maybe even a bit excited. After all, the SomethingAwful forum members aren’t exactly known for their sugar coating; if they’re praising it, there’s got to be a least some reason for it.

15 minutes later (stupid slow Bermudian internet), the album was finished traversing the world wide web and had landed on my laptop. I unpacked the archive with anticipation, and threw on track number 9, “A Voice On The Wind”, the song that had received the most praise.

I was definitely not disappointed with what I heard.

A beautiful love song, very obviously sung from the heart, paints the very melodramatic picture of a past love lost. Waxing nostalgic about an old flame, you immediately feel a connection with Krueger, empathizing and sympathizing with him all at once. While being a very mellow song, it has the ability to send a flood of similar emotions through the listeners head, reminding them of their first true love. Being the only melancholy song on the album, it definitely stands out from the rest, but also fits perfectly between the other emotion-driven songs.

The 10th track on the disc, “Suriel And Azrael And Many Other Names [sic]” starts out with a very powerful guitar, but even so, you can almost feel Krueger holding back. A song about youth misunderstanding, you can almost feel the pure innocence coming from the speaker as if transporting you back to your childhood, naive and curious. It ends with an aural montage of sound bites from various news sources, mainly about the war in Iraq, bring the listener back from childhood, stripping away that same innocence that was granted mere minutes ago.

This album is raw in every sense of the word. Recorded in what I can only assume is his basement or living room with just himself and his guitar, each and every song brings you into his world, into his little bubble, and shares with you his most intimate of experiences. Throughout the entire journey, it almost feels as if you’ve been given a seat next to him in a time machine, as he narrates the intricacies of his entire life.

I could truly go on and on about how amazing this album is. I could write 10 pages on why you should do whatever you can to obtain a copy of this album, but it still wouldn’t do it justice. Sun Tales is a beatiful story told by a beautiful poet. This is absolutely what music should be about.

Artist’s Website | Purchase Album