Sydney duo Aether + Vassallo are set to release their debut collaborative album Unbroken next month on vinyl/digital and today we are pleased to present the second single from the album, ‘Desire‘.
The song is another chapter in the ambient drone and drift of Unbroken, an album built on the slide guitar of Paul Vassallo and Bronwyn Eather‘s vocals, field recordings and composed soundscapes.
‘Desire’ draws inspiration from a remarkable work by the poet Anne Carson on the paradoxical nature of romantic love, Eros, the Bittersweet: An Essay. Eather wrote the song after reading the essay and it easily found its way into the themes of the album. Accompanied by evening sounds of crickets and the rumbling of thunder and rising humidity, the song finds its climax with cracking dry thunder and flickering firelight. Vassallo’s insistent arpeggios add to the drama and intensity of the song underlying the yearning of faded romantic love.
The album Unbroken is a mesmerising and deeply immersive experience with field recordings transporting us to a wildlife sanctuary of birds and insects, of wind and rain, of creatures of the light and of the dark. Journeying through a single day from early morning to a deep night rainstorm, we experience the world through the lens of poetics and passion, from light and sweet to dark and monstrous.
“Even if I came up with a dozen different layers of meaning or ways to interpret the songs and the music in Unbroken, the most important thing to us is that hopefully this kind of music is created with enough abstraction and space to allow a listener to have their own images and interpretations for each piece, and hopefully for the album as a whole,” Eather states. “This is the beauty and value of ambient music.”
Aether + Vassallo launch their new single at LazyBones Level 1 tomorrow night, April 18th, with special guests Delays Have Dangerous Ends and Illawarra Recording Service.
Doubtful Sounds 