Nothing - The Grey Subaudible (2000)

One of my all-time favorite records within the ambient/industrial/experimental genre was released ten years ago through Italy's Eibon Records. Nothing is Jason William Walton of Agalloch fame and on this release he was joined by Nihk Loiacano (whom I don't know to have played in any other bands).

'The Grey Subaudible' is a unique foray into the electronic genre as I've personally never heard anything that sounds quite similar or as diverse as this massive debut album. Each of the seven songs offer up something entirely different with sounds ranging from power electronics, dark ambient, dark wave and even Jason's own genre defying innovations, which honestly I've never been able to clearly identify or label. A common theme among the songs is that of a very dark mood and five of the songs also have vocals, which typically appear in a spoken manner, though on, 'In Command Of The Constellations' some screams make an appearance too.

I've always found the album to be interesting since most of the songs have a main melodic synth melody that's orchestral and bombastic sounding, while various odd synthetic sounds, vocals, percussion, samples and other oddness' are all blended together to form something that truly is unique and amazingly enough it works too.

As already mentioned, each song has a darkened atmosphere present, though I much like the somewhat laid back and relaxing approach to, 'Explosive Chain Of Lethal Transmission / 022.9,' while others like, 'In Command of the Constellations' are faster paced and some explore a more bizarre electronic side, 'An Intimate History of Insignificance.' The opening and ending pieces are somewhat typical power electronics fair, and in fact were created by Gruntsplatter (Scott E. Candey) for this release.

If memory serves me correctly, I got this album about nine years ago and during all these years I've never really known how to fully describe it, but that's surely never stopped me from recommending it. It also comes in a nice little digipak with a fantastic booklet, buy you don't get that part if you download it. If you're into experimental electronics stuff you'll definitely want to check this one out as its surely one of the best ones out there.