The São Paulo/London-based duo Hangin Freud started with their musical operations in the year 2005. In the same year was released the same named debut album which appealed at first sight with a blend of music noir, dark sounding shoegaze/darkwave, powerful indie, and slowcore as well. Scratchy guitars, gothic vocal mannerism, via obscure corridors of delay effects thronging sound, closely intimate spaceness. The music which was designed for people who are obsessed with thick curtains and red light beams. The next issue Continental didn`t add nothing to the concept of their debut one. On the contrary - the emotional aspect expressed through voice and instrument settings was pushed down sounding in a quite dry and passionless way.
However, first of all, Hangin Freud is a sapient duo who is able to learn from their own experiences. While still following a narrow conception of their sound (by its conceptual narrowness it is similar to Stereolab or Broadcast), they have designed their moulded parts and less audible details into much more formidable ones. On Sunken does Freud Hangin sound as their music was described somewhere on the Internet - claustrophobia, pigeons, suffocation, dry lips, nail bits, white walls. In comparison with Hangin Power herein are no such tracks based on intended sheer loudness anymore. Recent sound is full of crawling and dark blue-colored phantoms, which even flow sometimes. Paula Borges`s voice is a blend of burnt-out and resigned feelings and at times even more commissioned senses. Because of the restraint of the soundscape the part of vocal lines is more dominant on it. However, less than a half-hour ongoing Sunken is full of great numbers - Swamp was probably written in such a way seeing only the minimal song-writing composition as the ideal for it in the mind, thereafter to become itself as a template of minimalist dark pop sketch. A barely audible noisy hum in the background gives evidence of duo`s ability and sage to dally on human consciousness through sound manipulation, the title song (of short duration) introduces a journey full of enchanting fantasies. We Are Not hits with old piano sound generating strange dimensionality, which may seem plausible coming from the 1920`s-1930`s. Its hidden compulsive effects enforce the listeners repeat it over and over again. The ending song In The City is a mixture of atmospheric shoegaze and darkwave and would be a suitable yonder track for speculative film narrating the stories about ghost cities. Indeed, there is left enough room for imaginations - I am quite sure by reading simultaneously Edgar Allan Poe`s short stories (Berenice; Ligeia) aside it would give the listeners some metaphysical dimensions at that.
Sunken is a grandeur album which actually is getting better with each listen. No doubt, it is one of the musical peaks from the year 2010. The album is mandatory for every serious dark music supporter, hype-disdainful indie fan or uncompromising meloman.
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9.8
