Although “Scavengers,” my first encounter with the music of Eric Angelo Bessel at least prepared me for how wonderfully unusual and creatively “out there” this, his second album, would be, it could only ever be a snap shot for the whole, a slice of the soundscape that he makes and only a glimpse of that strange sonic land he builds.
Mirror at Night feels like a post-everything album, one that goes beyond any idea that Bessel is adhering to a format or genre, of, god forbid, any fleeting fad or fashion. This is music that would feel “outsider” in any era, and brilliantly so. It also feels as much about using music to make a statement as it does about creating otherworldly sonic lands, broaching that old debate of where music ends and art begins, and then deliberately not really giving us any solid answers as it probes those liminal spaces between.
“Tendons” sees the album ushered in on a wave of strange, primordial sounds or perhaps distant pulses received from the vastness of space, perhaps asking the listener to join the dots to find discerning patterns than giving us any straight answers. This is thought-provoking music (sound, noise, art?), but it does require that the listener at least meet it halfway. Moreso, even.
“Recombinant,” don’t worry, I had to look it up to find out that it means parts of a larger whole regrouped in new ways, feels perfectly titled once you know, almost sounding like the ideal incidental music for the divisions and growth of cells or movement of bacteria being studied under the microscope. “Hestitation,” meanwhile, heads more cinematic, Vangelisian forms, shimmering, seering, futuristic, somehow both bleak and yet a thing of utmost beauty.
It is hard to find many reference points for the music Eric Angelo Bressel makes, which makes it all the more compelling. Sometimes primal and raw, other times ambient and elegant, always adventurous and forward-thinking.