Cover design by Gaab
With ‘NOBODY LIVES HERE’, Chelidon Frame has produced and arranged an impressive sum of highly crafted sounds- ranging from field-recordings to electro-acoustic textures- into vivid technoscapes that are as hypnotic and alluring as they are unnerving and disquieting. Released under Humanhood Records, the album serves as an open field where Chelidon Frame’s playful approach to production is met with his sensitive and refined ambient songcraft, vividly projecting and sonically exploring the anxiety and alienation couched within modern ‘non-places’.
The album simulates for the listener a narcotically affected 3:30 AM layover in a mostly deserted luggage collection area (as depicted on the album cover). Through this auditory facsimile, rather than using ambient music as a panacea for the anxiety of ‘non-places’ like airports (as Eno did with his genre establishing album, ‘Music for Airports’), Chelidon Frame engages the imponderable hostility contained therein with incisive intention.
Previous albums in CF’s discography have arguably tracked more familiar territories within the ambient genre, such as the star speckled and open night sky sound of ‘Kuiper Belt’ (a collaborative project with Suseti), or the dronier but equally nocturnal ‘Wings in the Dark’ (a collaborative project with Discontinuation of Treatment). ‘NOBODY LIVES HERE’ stands out from these previous projects, with a more overtly ‘sci-fi’ sound. It is also a project that is tonally unafraid to send mixed messages- moments of beauty and tranquillity are both couched within and emerge out of tense, nauseating passages. The emotional effect arises only partly from this tonal contrast; wholly it arises from the continuity and cohesion of these contrasting elements.
Across the album’s four tracks, CF utilises a wide array of tones and sounds- crunchy, smooth and staticky; strings are plucked and hammer struck; machines call and respond, intermingle and intercut. The rich soundscapes CF creates are underscored by either the constancy of modemic sifting and/or the comforting drone of tape hiss. Despite their purposefully low fidelity, owed to the sound engineering, these sounds come through crisp and clear. The panning and the mixing also simulate vivid and mutating spaces, putting the listener at the centre of strange and cerebral landscapes, which threaten to give way at any moment.
Despite only running a short 24 minutes, the album’s pacing is difficult to pin down. Some tracks can feel like multiple tracks folded into one (particularly tracks 2 and 4). This makes the flow of the album overall feel disorienting and disjointed , but for me this adds to the overall feel of the album and its commentary.
The opener, ‘Cluster of Dust’ immediately sweeps the listener into a sense of unfaltering, rapid thought. Low flying synths expulse like distant hovercraft passing through vast tunnels. They distinctly remind me of some of the more spacious moments on select B12 tracks. The overtones of slide guitars bend up into the breeze of a cold, alien night. The subtle addition of strings, pulling one note atop the rising effervescence of the track gives it a cinematic edge. At the track’s end, this effervescence percolates into astral strings which diffuse into a misted dreamscape. Very nice!
‘Atarassia’ is book ended by horror film scenery, sounding like a hallway with lights flickering; bugs littering the air; a thousand fingernails scraping wooden doorways. After this disturbing prelude the scene ends suddenly. The main leg of the song’s journey is brought into view when, next, rusted strings struck by designless falling objects burst into the mix, coming at the listener from all angles. The scene is reshaped into something more expansive and mysterious. A crystallised synth pad pans into view- a searchlight, scouring a stainless steel wasteland. Definitely the most creepy track on the album.
The third track (my favourite) ‘Of Machines and Dogs’ floats the listener in amongst a vast and dark sea. This feeling is cemented by field recordings which imply wide open space. Sonar blips in the forms of synths and tape loops call out to one another, like distant ships sailing askew of one another in the dark. The amount of space they are given allows me to appreciate CF’s ability to pair textures and motifs together. It’s a simple track, but it is executed incredibly well. ‘Everything is Television’ closes us out. It has clearly differentiated movements throughout, but returning motifs and smooth transitions keep the track feeling continuous. It utilises moves seen across the album but neatly arranges them one after the other, so if you didn’t have 24 minutes to spare, listening to this track alone would be a decent alternative (but for this same reason I found it slightly less engaging).
This album is of really consistent quality. There are no bad tracks living here. Its’ brevity is definitely a boon and really highlights the strengths of the ideas contained in each of the songs. I think the first three tracks work as a brilliant triptych and play off of one another really nicely. As an ambient album it really sells that sense of spatial and sonic exploration that I personally come to the genre for.
I’d recommend ‘NOBODY LIVES HERE’ to ambient fans looking for familiar concepts and sounds, but with an added oblique and otherworldly feel. Anyone who likes the OST to Blade Runner, but prefers their sci-fi soundtracks to be more overtly dystopian rather than subtly faux-utopian, this is for you also. I definitely got a read on this project as scratching a similar itch to the more ambient leaning acts on Warp records.
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Favourite Tracks: Of Dogs and Machines, Cluster of Dust
FFO: Blade Runner OST, Early Oneohtrix Point Never, Huerco S.
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Support this release and the artist @:
BANDCAMP: https://chelidonframe.bandcamp.com/album/nobody-lives-here
LABEL: https://humanhoodrecordings.bandcamp.com
WEBSITE: https://chelidonframe.site/home
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See Chelidon Frame’s work on therudderstream @:
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Jack, 6 May 2023
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