De verste verte is hier

(Originally published at valleyofsteel.net)

Laster, mysterious and elusive two-piece band from Utrecht, NL, have been firmly on the radar screen of this website ever since they released their incredible EP Wijsgeer & Narreman back in the summer of 2012 (reviewed here). Since that time, they've continued to create their oversaturated soundscapes -- a sound they've started referring to as "obscure dance music" -- including the release of their debut full-length De Verste Verte is Hier ("The Farthest Distance is Here") nearly two and a half years ago. Ever since then, I've been meaning to write about that album and bring it to the attention of you, the readers, and today that's exactly what I'm doing.

The four songs on this album -- averaging almost twelve minutes each -- are every bit as jam-packed with atmosphere, blending static/noise with multiple layers of music, as the preceding EP was. All of these combined parts within this wall of sound generate so many overtones and artificial harmonics that the overall impression is of slow back-and-forth chords and notes, like baroque dance music -- unfocusing your ears and your mind, just letting the music wash over you, you may find sound often resembles a chamber string ensemble more than a black metal band. Alternating bright and bleak moods, the trance is occasionally broken with just atmospheric elements remaining -- for example around the middle of "Tot de Tocht Ons Verlicht" where everything else dies away for a short time, leaving something like a church organ and choir-singing (with a bit of agonized screaming somewhere in the background); also, midway through "Ik - Mijn Masker" a slowly descending synth/organ phrase takes over, and then gives way to an impressionistic solo piano sketch throughout the last remaining minutes.

But for the most part, poking through the pleasant façade we find the multitude of levels underneath are in fact black metal through and through; drums and guitars racing each other while accompanied by faraway harsh shrieking or sometimes ghastly shrieking/howling. The music, at its root, is made up of such furiously fast elements twisting and whipping past each other, that it seems like the pure aural embodiment of the meditative spinning practices of Sufi dervishes.

Only in the title track (the shortest here by far, at just six minutes) do things really shift gears: this song employs an ACTUAL dance-music drumbeat, new-wavey synths and krautrock-esque vocoders, for a general darkwave sound. Even still, here the band somehow manages to generate the exact same overall blend of bleak/forlorn/longing/hopeful feeling as is found in the other material on the album.