Subba-Cultcha weighs in on Kontakte’s “We Move Through Negative Spaces”
Kontakte are, as well as being a dab-hand at subverting the ol’ spell checker, a London based four-piece creating sparse post-rock sounds capes of melody with an electronic twist. Think Mogwai or 65daysofstatic segueing in and out with a drum machine driven Radiohead and you’re sort of there. We Move Through Negative Spaces is the second studio album from these guys after 2009’s debut of Soundtracks To Lost Road Movies.
Since that album the band have spent their time locked away in isolation through the months, meticulously planning a new batch of songs to entice listeners ears with. It is said that each track was written with the others in mind, with a strong awareness of how each would sit next to the other and be consumed as an album – a continuous hour of music. This is certainly apparent from the faux record scratches and pops that peak out from between the relative quiet spaces between the tracks; the tracks that all lay in the post-six minutes in length region (all but the haunting softly spoken acoustics and violin flourishes of ‘Every Passing Hour’), such is their expansiveness.
The album is full of reverberating walls of sound, whether it’s the hazy synthetic thrum of ‘Astralagus’, or the glitch-core drum machine marvels of ‘Hope…’ and its sudden eruption of guitar attack intensity. Even the placid, deep space hum of ten-minute album closer ‘The Ocean Between You And Me’ and its cheeky xylophone refrains are a wonder to listen to.
We Move Through Negative Spaces is nothing new, nothing groundbreaking. There isn’t a catchy chorus or bit you can dance to in sight, and yet, it all flows so smoothly, working as a calming, coherent package. The tracks are masterfully crafted with layers of guitars and other sounds working together throughout the hour of instrumental joys. This is the perfect album to put you to sleep. In the best possible way.