The Dyson Swarm

I've probably come in at the tail end of this prolific Russian act's discography when sole member Vaarwel was moving into more electronic ambient soundtrack territory. "The Dyson Swarm" certainly sounds like a soundtrack in search of a suitable sci-fi film that meditates on connections between and among the universe, one's inner space and humanity's place in the great scheme of everything. Unfortunately Hollywood does not like to take risks on such films if not made by hack directors like Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan, let alone on musical works by composers it does not know (or want to know) so this album must go begging. What better than to plug into the record ourselves and supply our own (inner) visual film behind our eyelids?

So let's set the controls for the heart of the universe and off we go ... the launch has its fair share of glum goodbyes as space travellers farewell loved ones they're unlikely to see for a long time (say, about several hundred years) and solemn moments of long siren synth drone and organ rumble as a nation cheers on its heroes as their ship flies into the firmament. Once settled in for the long haul, listeners and travellers alike discover how long and stretched out time can be: how astronauts cope with long spells zooming between stars we cannot yet say but listeners exposed to repetitive synth and organ melody loops - and very ordinary ones at that - might consider the deep-sleep option beloved of films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Interstellar" as too much of the music on tracks like "CE-4" come across as cheesy and B-grade kitsch in its sound, melody and riffing, and there is very little pause for the kind of contemplation needed when spaceships approach giant exoplanets surrounded by glittering rings of dust and ice crystals.

A big problem is that far too much of the music is busy, always rushing to the next destination, like a coachload full of tourists having to tick off a list of destinations and therefore only able to spend five minutes per hot spot and half an hour at the souvenir shops associated with the place of interest. There is no time to allow listeners to linger and savour the experience of being fully immersed in deep space or of orbiting a massive planet and seeing storms hundreds of kilometres in diameter raging across its surface. By necessity, tracks would need to be fairly long, at least 10 minutes, and yet the longest track is only just over nine minutes.

The decision to create epic, massive music in nearly all tracks must have seemed a good idea on paper but translated into music to be heard, the epic and the monumental can end up too ponderous and pretentious. To work effectively, such music needs to be balanced by passages of delicacy or periods of quiet, even dead silence.

When all is said and done, I'm not convinced that Vaarwel really understands what creating a soundtrack to a journey in inner and outer space really involves. There's none of the sense of being awed and overwhelmed by the sheer size and majesty of the universe, its great silences, the brightness of the galaxies and how everything came into existence and whether it all might have an end. The generic music seems very sterile and self-absorbed.

I was prepared for an album that, no matter how hard it strove, might be unable to convey the full majesty of space but "The Dyson Swarm" does not even come close to being a noble failure.