Released just a few weeks after the transcendently invigorating Six Archetypes by her compatriot Soho Rezanejad, the experimental composer Astrid Sonne’s debut Human Lines underscores the burgeoning creativity taking place in Denmark and, in particular, the Escho collective in Copenhagen.
Where Rezanejad majors on drama and bliss, however, Sonne’s signature elements are rooted in her classical training, hybridised here with a newfound bent for digital adventurism. Hence the album spans unsettling cosmic entropy a la Oneohtrix Point Never (In), spasmodic sound art redolent of Asa-Chang and Junray’s neoclassical exercises (Real, Life) and daubs of dark avant-garde ambience that cock a snook at the mossy enquiries of The Haxan Cloak.
While such pieces appeal chiefly to the intellect, on the record’s finale, Alta, Sonne eschews electronic sources and instead presents a spiralling, overlapping lament for strings that is both melancholic and momentous. The lack of pretence is a fittingly sincere way to round off a record which demonstrates that while Astrid Sonne might not be the finished article she has the potential to prosper not only as an experimental composer but as a catalyst for the liberation of the talents of others.
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