Humons - Spectra

So many of these music blogs will proselytize the healing powers of music... These five curiosities are just what I need after a week of such anxiety...

With Humons, I want to take my time. There's a lot that crashes over you on his new E.P., distinctive sonic latticework of dissonance or disparate harmonic elements swelling together into one dense strand. There are often several moments of calm, these recurring conveyances of pulse-lowering rhythms, pensively percolating synthesizers and shoulder-relaxing beat patterns, the feet shuffle or the head nods, the breathing stabilizes and the mind is almost eased.



That said, the lyrics on "What I'll Find" are those of a frustrated soul, and it is in fact pretty much a soul song, or some kind of aerodynamic new chrysalis of neo-R&B or "electro..." Humons, the moniker of songwriter/producer Ardalan Sedghi, paired with the mixing and mastering of Jon Zott over at Assemble Sound, seem to be in valleys far beyond the typical ditch-like grooves of post-millennial techno-pop or post-rave-EDM, even if they travel over comparable musical foundation and aesthetic carriages such as the cinematic slither of mood-setting sounds like churning synthesizers and the understated bass-heavy beats...



The pacing at which you are introduced to each new layer of a song like "Try It For Me" is notable, you're pulled in with this steady glide that makes it easy to acclimate to each new percussive arrangement, each new blip, drone or whirring...to this illusory effect where your ear can't quite keep up with what to pay the most attention to, leading to a rise and fall effect of which beat you nod-to more at which interval, which synth sound entices you more as they all crest together. That's the spectra, the swell of distinct and disparate harmonies into some kind of impossible union.

This is short notice, but the release party for Humons Spectra EP is TONIGHT