Review: Origami Galaktika - One

Even as harsh sunlight spills through my windows, I sit within the pitch black of One. I hear cello strings and bubbling water intermingling with the dark; low frequencies blocking the moonlight out, squeals of flutes sidling out from behind the trees. I hear instruments mutating in the night, as if lunar gravity is tugging them into new forms; delay and reverb bulging the outlines, equalisation sucking the high frequency colour out. The quiet solemnity of these instruments feels deliberate and meaningfully aligned. I’ve arrived at an arboreal ceremony of sorts, sinking into an atmosphere whose purpose hangs as an obscure silhouette; heavy and compelling, yet ultimately alien to me.

I want to know the significance of the bowed strings that stand like a totem pole, dead centre. Notes crawl upward as though hindered by the tack of tree sap, lining each drone with tiny threats of stillness and death, while dry leaves and dead bugs crunch and crackle upon the floor, cast at my feet by something above me. I persist with One forever, waiting for an epiphany to sweep my situation like a searchlight. Instead it lingers patiently, enclosed within its own language, alluding to places and ideas that I can observe but fail to understand; waterfall worship, microtonal meditation, the dismantling of beginnings and ends. I listen again, eternally transfixed and insatiable.