I have to give credit to Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana. Aside from keeping me beguiled for the almost ten years I have listened to his music, he has tirelessly been unafraid to reinvent his sound and work with other unusual talents. This year alone we have seen the stunningly different Spore, which is rather like the aural equivalent of a Lucio Fulci movie. Now, in the vein of his past collaborations with Asmus Tietchens and Serge Devadder--two artists who operate in a somewhat more untraditional style of experimental sound--Vidna Obmana chooses to release a record teamed with David Lee Myers (formerly known as Arcane Device). It's both a likely and unlikely collaboration. While Vidna Obmana's recent work has nowhere near approached the harsh, gritty textures of Arcane Device's work, the early Vidna Obmana was definitely rooted in a similar type of industrial noise. Dirk Serries has clearly chosen to return to earlier, harsher musical roots (and both Tracers' and Spore's sounds reflect this return).

With that said, Tracers, while containing experimental touches that might alienate a less adventurous Vidna Obmana listener, is a surprisingly cohesive, thematic, and engaging listen. Perhaps these are my own fears coming into play--would Serries discard his traditional ambient leanings in favor of a tougher sound with more "indie cache"? I'm glad to write that just the opposite is the case. Serries and Myers have aligned their two sounds to such a symbiotic purity that only their respective strengths appear, with neither style taking prominence over the other.

Tracers is divided into eight sectors; each piece drifting into the next, though clearly the tracks are separate but bonded compositions. In a rare way, the cover art by Myers describes the music within rather perfectly. It features a three by three square of nine images on both sides of the CD case. Each image features a shaded background and strange metallic "squiggles" that reflect this background in a strange, warped fashion. It can be said that the Vidna Obmana atmospheres are this nebulous background, ranging from dark to light, becoming a constant backbone to each sector of this recording. Myers's contribution is a sometimes jagged, sometimes curved presence in the foreground; creating its own unreadable space, while at the same time reflecting and distorting Vidna Obmana's backgrounds. Certainly it is difficult to ignore the foreground feedback and fluttery electronic noises from Myers. But it is just as difficult to discount the Vidna Obmana atmospheres, often dark and cloying, but so vast that Myers's contributions seem like lone buoys amidst a roiling sea. The two sonic images meld into a completely immersive totality.

By the mid-point to end of Tracers, the listener has been plunged into a bizarre world of metallic creatures, grazing in an angular, multi-jointed and alien fashion on silvery artificial plantlife that seems to grow in ominous architectural formations. Sector seven even contains the beautiful, harmonic fujara (now a Vidna Obmana mainstay) bringing a rapturous, cathedral-like feel to all of the territory explored on the record.

In all, Vidna Obmana and David Lee Myers have crafted a unique addition to both of their catalogs--spooky, subterranian, alien, vast, not to mention deliciously deep. It may take a few listens to fully discover and appreciate the sonic terrain, but I found the trying well, well worthwhile.

Available on CD in a limited edition of 500 copies on Klanggalerie.

since July 15, 2003