New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The Hole In The Ground (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is bursting with rich treats from the imagination of Amon Tobin. A film in audio/visual excerpts, each track has its own short selected from the visual explorations of Tobin's alter ego Shy1 and musically we are teased with beguiling and frightening hints at what the story of this place we see might be.
It's a collection of music and imagery playing with themes and deliberately incomplete narratives, inviting us to wonder; where is this place? What is the story of these characters? The viewer is left enough space for their own imagination to begin to fill in the gaps.
It's an enjoyably menacing process.
It's the uneasy feeling we get from the perpetual undulation between hope and fear coursing through each and every minute of the EP's six tracks.
Opening with the ominous, glittering "Hole in the Ground" with plaintive cries from the edges of the universe, "Ghost of a Star" brings a disturbing and delicate urgency through sound and visuals where we appear to be presented with the sculptural, modular construction of a
Black Hole. A portent of what is to come or a playful game the Gods play to amuse themselves?
If we could intercept the conversations the machines are having then "Wolves in the Yard" is how they may sound. It builds and builds leaving us with an inkling that perhaps something that is not our friend is coming close.
"Larkspur" reveals a beautiful, biomechanical temple and its acolytes. But did they arrive with the vessels featured in the earlier Hole in the Ground film or do they worship them? Again the questions… What is this place? Who are these people?
"Self Collider" tantalizes with elements of light, in sound and vision. A different climate suggests there is more than one tribe in this evolving world and there amongst the triumvirate of dancers is a character already familiar to Nomark devotees, Figueroa.
Celebration, ritual or necessity? The billowing choreography of "Self Collider"'s dancers is filled with an intense grace and a fierce determination etched onto the faces that we can see. As their dance comes to an end there is an enigmatic serenity in their eyes.
There's something curiously optimistic and grand about "Pale Tundra" that keeps you guessing. A mighty rock looms large in an otherwise flat and ice encrusted landscape, as our view sweeps across this unnatural wonder your eyes are drawn by details you may not have noticed at first. Beneath the horse like rock paintings, are there really petrified faces trapped in the lines and shadows of the cliffs or is it just a pareidolic response?
Hole In The Ground (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is a glimpse into the developing work of film score and story.
Other clues are available via Shy1's work on other videos here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-46deNdu9WXdoG4ugmUGWuXvSR9Hnlu9
Tracklist:
Hole In The Ground
Ghost Of A Star
Wolves In The Yard
Larkspur
Self Collider
Pale Tundra
"My nightmares finally have a soundtrack I can listen to while I'm awake… and I mean that as a compliment."
"
Incredible", "
Amazing" and "Utterly compelling"
- Reactions when Nomark released the Hole In The Ground video film earlier this year.
