According the press-release, this album – the latest release from the amazing Aurora Borealis – has been a long time coming. I think that all artists on the label should take as long as they want to produce records, because this one was so worth the wait.
Grumbling Fur is a kind of avant super-group, featuring members of Guapo, Mothlite, Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses, and Alexander Tucker.
The bulk of the recording was, apparently, done over one day-long improv session, and then spent a long period gestating in the ‘post-production’ department. On paper, this sounds horrible. However, the results are amazing.
Not quite drone, not quite ambient, and not quite rock, Furrier is a tough one to explain. The music moves between under-stated, yet somehow epic meanderings, and strange – dare I say it – ‘jams’, that seem to contain some kind of narrative structure. Occasionally, voices can be heard screaming within the tapestry of sound, but they are added inside the music almost, which adds a kind of eerie underbelly to the overall listening sensation. When the screams leave, sedating guitars are joined by very meditative drumming, and magickal chanting, and droning.
This record is the perfect accompaniment piece to a Jodorowsky‘s ‘The Holy Mountain‘, or some kind of long and testing magickal operation. Simultaneously absorbing, intriguing, comforting, and frightening. In other words, very very good!
Ken Eakins
