Review: Aires & Rui P. Andrade - Pânico-Ambiente

With noise, I often have to meet the imagery halfway. I wrestle a scrap of static to the ground as it tries to writhe out of my hands. I take a good look at it. Like a constellation in the stars, I decipher a vague sonic likeness. A thousand kettles hitting boiling point in chorus? A tree tearing in two? With Pânico-Ambiente, the imagery is immediate and undeniable. It lunges at me, wide-eyed. A fireman’s hose full of pressurised blizzard, spewing above my head, occasionally catching me on the cheeks. Three chandeliers colliding with a marble floor, splaying crystal and sharp harmonics in every direction. It’s vivid, it’s thick – the duo commit to each action as if it’s their gut’s only ever instinct, thrusting their bodies into the volume, submerging themselves in their own spew.

There are melodies and they’re ridiculous: crude keyboards in descending patterns, distorted so that the notes quiver, like a human figure seen behind a waterfall. The air on either side shudders and scampers out of the way. The main sensation on the first side of the record (“Pânico”) is falling. The noise is collapsing into gravity flow – static rains in monsoon droplets, drenching me in vibration with no sign of respite. The storm is relentless and there’s nowhere to take refuge. 13:18 in, a wormhole opens up in the sky – a synthesiser whirling manically – and the rain divides to reveal a sphere of light. Not the sun, though. Brighter.

“Ambiente” occurs when the rain submerges me. The water pools and rises above my head, throbbing as though electrified. My ears are clogged with mid and low frequencies that judder with a million tiny vibrato waves. Little knocks and metallic croaks adorn the surface like debris ripped up in the blast of “Pânico”, bobbing and dancing upon the waters. I’m drowning. The sound starts to fail as though my ears are switching off, falling out of consciousness, slipping beneath, my body massaged by the convulsion as it finally ceases to respond.