Daimon are an Italian collective made up of musicians Simon Balestrazzi, Paolo Monti, and Nicola Quiriconi who mix analog and digital synthesisers with tape and contact microphones to weave immersive music made up of hypnotic drones and pulsating landscapes.
Ellipse is their new album made up of six captivating ambient tracks creating audio slow motion and electronic shifting sands that can calm the mind or create a darkly brooding atmospheric . The opening track ‘Cat’ arrives on a gentle breath of synthesiser which dilutes the buzz of sonically-misshapen insect sounds before a constant pulse arrives to anchor the swaying, ghostly presence of an electronic foghorn.
The title track builds from a degraded tape recording of piano which fades into reversed loops and synth washes with a repeated ringing bell. It feels like time moving and backward simultaneously which creates a delightful sense of being held in blissed-out stasis.
Phased space is folded like origami on ‘The Pillow’, and ‘Gama’ seems to interpretate twinkling computer circuits alongside om-like chants and urgent arpeggios reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s ‘On The Run’. ‘Dismember’ evokes a subterranean abyss of dark possibilities like the world of the Morlocks in The Time Machine. ‘The Star’ closes the album and, like a David Lynch soundtrack, mixes the angelic with the demonic as bells sounds swirl around a dark undercurrent of granulated electronic distortion.
Daimon’s individual members have a wealth of other bands and projects they are involved in, encompassing both sound and visual media, but the sounds they make when brought together are intriguing, meditative and sometimes unsettling. There may be no actual danger but it’s good for us all to have one eye on the dark corner while we enjoy the sunlight through the window.
Daimon socials: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Review by Paul F Cook
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