Firmament

Speaking of meaningless slogs, has anyone in the audience ever sat through an entire Midnight Odyssey album? The brave few that have are treated to a double disc…odyssey that rivals the extended version of ‘The Return of the King’ in length, and as a result murders any redeeming qualities that were gestating; because the runtimes are – frankly – taking the piss. But here we’re gonna focus on Midnight Odyssey’s de facto debut, 2009’s ‘Firmament’ (I’m aware that it’s meant to be demo, but it’s not, wake up and smell the seventy minutes of your life you just spent listening to this ‘demo’). We’re picking this album to focus on because it encapsulates Tony Parker’s early vision of marrying the hyper-reality of dreamscapes that is early Burzum with graceful and epic symphonics, creating a sonic environment that’s both thrilling and meditative, familiar yet fantastical. This is of course before the project expanded on these ideas…by expanding the exact same ideas out beyond reason, leaving what nuggets of treasure that were left marooned in a desert of one note ambience.

Back to ‘Firmament’. The mix here sets up the aims of this project pretty well. Everything is filtered through some fairly aggressive compression, because dynamics don’t really factor into the Midnight Odyssey ethos. Drums are played up to sound synthetic, offering consistent tempos that frequently settle on a trancelike gallop to enhance the feeling that this music is taking you on a journey. We are guided on this quest by thin, layered guitars, working through simple, repetitive harmonies which, when bolstered by a near constant undercurrent of spacious synths create a rich and oddly warm coating of noise. Vocals are a distant, echoing wail of passion which vary little. In the spirit of Summoning, the focus is on patiently building up layers of looped sequences, only to deconstruct them, before driving this simple interplay through various iterations, and then usually working in a well placed key change to bring the piece to a climatic finale. It’s a tried and tested formula, but if you get the mix of tones and moods just right, backed up by creative but repetitive drum patterns, it’s a formula with legs.

What’s interesting about ‘Firmament’ is Midnight Odyssey’s willingness to keep things so clean and crisp. Tonally, this has more in common with the epic end of gothic rock than it does Xasthur. Add to that a desire to keep things moving over the bloaty runtime of this album and it makes for an epic listen. Here at least, Midnight Odyssey throw enough contrast and variation between themes, keys, and tempos that it is both broad in ambition but also constantly refreshing itself, ready for the next soundscape opening up for the listener to explore. The enduring impression left in its wake is tranquil. This is not overly bombastic; it’s a work that seeks to be at peace with the universe. But such euphoria is not overly sentimental, the triumphant finales that crop up to bookmark the album are earned, the pieces are built up and fully articulated before we are given the satisfaction of a conclusion. A fine demonstration of the marriage of an idea with the ability to not only compose pieces to articulate said idea, but also the tech smarts to find a mix that elevates every tiny scrap of music to its full potential.

Midnight Odyssey – I’ll say it again, with ‘Firmament’ at least – created a richly textured album of varied moods, tension, relief, contemplation, euphoria, and pathos unfolds before our ears, one with many rewards along the way for the patient listener.

Originally published at Hate Meditations