HLER: LGM-1: Igloomag Review

Constantly threatening and burgeoning, there are hints of extra-sensory projections. Nothing mellow here. It gives a large space to tiny incremental directions and micro-tonal gestures.

Experimentations sustained by dense layers of drones and flexible sound textures

Coming from the DIY musical community HLER (aka Heikki Lindgren and Esa Ruoho) are a Finnish experimental / drone infused duo with materials published as ultra-limited hand crafted editions assorted with digitals.

HLER’s musical and creative signature is said to be largely improvised, turned to aleatoric experimentations sustained by dense layers of drones and flexible sound textures, occasionally admitting conceptual ideas that fall in the electroacoustic field of researches.

From a first listen to LGM-1, it delivers vertical droning chimes, crackling sounds, and chilling soundscapes. Playing with feedback, resonance, feelings of dislocation, motion, and buzzed out frequencies floating in the air—the whole soundscaping tapestry is well balanced. Constantly threatening and burgeoning, there are hints of extra-sensory projections. Nothing mellow here. It gives a large space to tiny incremental directions and micro-tonal gestures.

These electronic drone-soaked aspects of minimalist music can easily admit comparisons with the brooding shifted moods designed by artists such as Justin Wright (Expo 70), Phil Niblock (among other names), toxified post-industrial artefacts of Zoviet France, Nocturnal Emissions, Galerie Schallschutz, and free form electroacoustic researches, sound morphologies of Bernard Parmegiani (ref. De Natura Sonorum).