As has become his sonic strategy as we head into the next full-album release, Byorn Gold gives us his latest four-track EP Becoming, the final installation which follows Beginning and Being to complete the forthcoming album, Eastern Time. And it is a strategy that has served him, not to mention his audience, well. It offers bite-sized samples of the album for us to taste and savour four tracks at a time, allowing us, the listeners, not to be overwhelmed with new material, giving us time to really get to know these four tracks. It means that by the time the full album in this case, Eastern Time, is released, it is like greeting an old friend. But for now, these tracks are new friends, and who doesn’t like making new friends?
Guru kicks things off, and, sonically speaking, we find ourselves in the poised and polished territory that often pervades Byorn’s creations. But deeper in the song more philosophical forces are at work, beyond the funky basslines and the soulful guitar licks, the rise and fall of dynamics, and the ebbing and flowing of the saxophone. With the previous EPs themed around aspects of the Hindu gods Brahma and Vishnu, we now find ourselves in the realm of Shiva. Like the Death card in the tarot, Shiva is often, and quite wrongly, associated with one aspect, that of destruction. But, more appropriately, both such avatars are signifiers of transformation and change, which is at the heart of this opening track.
“No guitar was ever played without breaking some strings,” and that first line sums up the gentle philosophies that run through the lyrics. It advocates some worldly and wise concepts—that the only constant state is that of perpetual change and that it is only through personal development and evolution that you become a better version of yourself. Change is inevitable, but the nature of that change is up to you – and if you follow and learn from the change, you BECOME change, i.e. the guru, one day.
Fantastic Days is a more understated track, one that sits somewhere between neo-soul and alternative pop but is forged from more traditional sounds than either of those terms would suggest. Lyrically metaphysical and musically seductive, it feels like a mantra or perhaps a koan, full of suggestion and providing more questions than answers, more to be pondered than proven, but still with the message that the present – each passing day – is fantastic and must be appreciated.
It is with the arrival of Asian Dream that he fully embraces the sonic spirit of India, giving us a song that is the perfect blending of Eastern musical traditions and Western musical forms, the marriage of Orient and Occident. A cryptic narrative, although not cryptic to those in the know, but again, a story woven with beguiling mystique and hidden wisdom. And who knows if these ladies are from Russia, China and India.
Things round off with I Have Got To Go, a lush and lovely blend of cinematics and sonic sensitivity that forms the perfect conclusion to the previous songs of self-development and new ways of living life, of the development of new philosophies and exploring roads less travelled. Here, it is the simple life that he seeks. Having stripped away the complexities and distractions of the modern world, it is this simple and singular way of living which is the place that he feels most at home, which Byorn Gold already laid out in his early 20s.
Some records are just about entertainment. Other times, say in the more progressive realms, the lyrics become a real focal point, though often at the expense of accessibility. So to come across a set of “becoming” songs that is able to be both informing and entertaining, deep but accessible, enlightening and musically alluring, is a rare treat indeed.
