Astral & Shit + Sádon – Imitation of Meditation

It’s still not a common practice for DIY Conspiracy to showcase music beyond the hardcore/punk frame. However, DIY is surely not an approach monopolized by those genres and their followers, and it was high time we brought up something different. The latter word being quite conditionally used here as a third of the people who wrote the record, discussed here, is actually an active part in the Russian (post) hardcore scene. Namely this is Sanya from Euglena (that we mentioned already here) is a part of the drone duo Sádon. Quickly after they put out their debut in January this year and through the French tape label BLWBCK, they were ready with another record, featuring music from Sanya Vorobey and Donat Mavleev. This time they weren’t alone, but accompanied by the sounds of Ivan Gomzikov’s Astral & Shit, a very productive, yet quite underground sound artist, also hailing from the cold lands of Russia.

The result is a 22 minute long piece, so organically incorporating all three approaches to sound, that you can barely tell it’s a collaboration, and an not actual band. The only distinctive elements, reminiscent of something already known are the blurry and gentle vocals, already mastered by Sádon in their previous recordings. The sound in Imitation Of Meditation is slow, thin and fragile. It is icy, distant and its shallowness is just a mask for everything you will find hidden below the cold and tense layers of drone. Despite the name it’s carrying I don’t find this piece mediative. It is too complex for such a purpose. It’s challenging and interesting, which should be valued more than a bunch of never ending drones, suited to be a plain background music for times spent in trance or just sleeping. Yes, you can’t sleep on this record, because you will freeze to your very death.

The only thing that makes me sad about this record (and in general about Astral & Shit) is the name chosen for the project. It’s just not fair to put such fine pieces of music under such a lame and dumb monicker, really.

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