Clarice Jensen provides provocative and immense layers of sound in new record The Experience Of Repetition As Death.
Brooklyn-based cellist Clarice Jensen is no stranger to adaptability within music. Renowned for looping effects, building layers, and morphing structures, the musician uses her instruments in more ways than one by manipulating their output to create new and inventive soundscapes. Album The Experience Of Repetition As Death is no different, with Jensen at the top of her game providing harrowing musical structures and dysticve ideas throughout.
Opening with the more natural sound of a cello we’re able to straight away just sit back and listen to Jensen’s unfiltered, unabridged skill unfold and develop into a warm and hypnotising piece. The sound rises and falls as an undercurrent of consistency holds everything together and drives the track forward. It really comes into its own as the track begins to reach its conclusion with layers doubling up and sounds built to create a more structured but sorrowful conclusion.
If you thought this was setting up the album for a more classic feel, second track Day Tonight puts to rest any of those thoughts. Using organic structures, pedals and loops, Jensen creates an opening drone of sound that builds menacingly before revealing itself in a light and playful section that drags us out of the dark amongst docile tones and heartfelt melodies. The track is given a lot of time to develop, almost 12 minutes in fact, in which it changes to a more convoluted and manipulated piece that wouldn’t feel out of place in a mind-bending sci-fi film score, perhaps drawing from the work of Max Richter in places.
As we delve deeper, Jensen’s penchant for structure and exploration becomes more realised with ideas morphing and intersecting at different moments throughout. Metastable uses an underlying drone once again for its basis, but this time it’s the soundscapes built on top that take centrestage, providing a solace from the ordinary and a beacon of hope from within the darkness. Holy Mother is a gargantuan think-piece that once again settles into a morose and exciting atmosphere and plays with these ideas throughout, content to put the listener in an uneasy place but still managing to develop strong ideas and emotion. The record ends on the aptly named Final, a more gentle and settled affair which feels like a cleansing after the intensity and menace of the previous work.
The Experience of Repetition As Death truly is an experience, one that brings with it an impressive array of emotions amongst expert layering, manipulation and looping of sounds. This creates not only a listening experience but a mental one that will stay with you long after the record has finished. A truly mind-altering record that shows off the expertise of an artist at the top of her game.
Score: 4/5
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