After three years, Jacek Doroszenko and Rafał Kołacki have resumed their project Mammoth Ulthana and they have done it in a very good style. And they do it quite diffrently from their debut “Mammoth Ulthana”, because the ambient passages have been replaced with a large, really huge number of rhythms and electronic paintings. And instrumental addititions, which individually add charm to musical themes of individual tracks, but here they really create an overall picture of “Particular Factors”.
Oh, let’s take these rattles, horns and flutes which are used by Rafał Kołacki. Take field recordings, samples and gongs which Jacek Doroszenko is responsible for (also piano and electronics). It could be minute details, audio inserts attending to a positive valueof the album and not the main instruments of “Particular Factors”. And Mammoth Ulthana, precisely because of these things, make their dark, full of reverb and gloom musical stories. Stories of a tribal nature, of an even ceremonial nature. Because these ritual drums, these gongs occurring from time to time, the bells slipping on the largely perceptible line of sacred silence and finally a distorted piano create this unique atmosphere demanding full attention.
Meditation? Yes, this music is ideal for meditation, spacing out in one’s thoughts and absorbing the provided stimuli. And there is really a lot of it, starting from an ambient “Antiphase” based on dragged keyboard lines and emerging noises and horns where a knocker freely enters a dialogue with silence, and elongated horns correspond with a creakiness in the background. “Throat” is probably the most oriental and muted composition, focusing on contemplation thanks to calm, tapping underlying rhythm which is overlapped by the sound of gongs. And “UV Garden” enchants with delicate bells and frivolous flute which sparkle its brilliance in the shadows of elaborate electronics. A nod to Kołacki’s travel might be “Basilisk”, associated with his last year’s album “Istanbul. Aux Oreilles D’un Etranger” and his trip to Turkey. The same oriental, Middle Eastern melodies, at the same time wild and cozy.
A tribute to reverbs, gongs and the echo is “Carbon”, where the duo gives vent to their fantasies, minimalist yet full of noise. Such a mess that appears at the end of the track is almost overpowering. These noise struggles continue also in the next one, “Sove”, showing aggressive, based on the one hand on harsh, blatant distortions, and on the other a delicate ambient line that stands out against the noise. And Mammoth Ulthana, as they began their musical story, they continue it with the same means. Sometimes they are more electronic (“Baldr” with the parts of the piano and cosmic samples), sometimes more cacophonous (“Estate” and “Ratatoskr”), and later again fully ritually (“Tombs”). What does not change is the desire to create electroacoustic paths in a darkly-sacral style.
This in-depth album is without a doubt one of the most interesting releases in our part of the world. “Particular Factors” everything is as it should be. Even silence, even echo surrounding the individual sounds.
7.5 / 10
