Review: Spandril - 22/7

Perhaps 22/7 is the last thing I’m ever going to hear? I can’t quite identify why this tape makes me feel this way, but the silence that follows its conclusion feels eerily absolute; I’m left with the embers of the melody that has just mournfully dipped out of physical space, tracing the memory as it withers and fades, feeling as though the last sparks of the universe have just dimmed into dust. The mortality of these pieces was forewarned though, and the quiver of analogue capture is prominent – textures are coated in the coarse pockets of a deep and deathly erosion, with micro-dips in volume implanting the initial impact of a patient, mournful degeneration. 22/7 is a swan song for sound itself, crackling on the perimeter, delaying the onset of silence for just half an hour more.

“22” feels like a blues melody teased out into a ribbon, curling upward into half-hopeful deviations from the engulfment of the minor key. At one point it undergoes a phantom rejuvenation, fizzing to the forefront ablaze with new life; the delicate harmonic entwine becomes a ferocious, serrated jostle of noise and overtone, and while the subsequent reduction into quiet is still inevitable, the outbreak of optimism is affirming and beautiful. Meanwhile, “7” slumps into semi-monotony, kept from flat lining completely by the tones that tilt and swerve over the top like sea anemones, looping around the edge of the frame like a soft, fluttering convection current.