"The album unfolds with the patience of a long tracking shot, fostering the illusion of being swallowed up by darkness. Opener "Moon" begins with a rich, buzzing synthesizer drone and the huff of naked breath through a horn; as the chord expands, revealing new frequencies, Williams sketches the tentative outline of a minor-key melody before he's joined by the searching cries of his bandmates."
"Compared to the ominous penumbra of "Moon," "Visage" is a tribute to the clarion gleam of three-horn music; the players weave an elegiac succession of slowly shifting harmonies enlivened by unexpected tonal pivots and slow-motion soloing from Vandever. It's as graceful as Stars of the Lid. After that melodic highlight, the candle snuffs out, and we're plunged into darkness. Williams has described Odu as "a process of unraveling," and"
The record moves with patient, cinematic pacing, opening with "Moon," where buzzing synthesizer drone, breath through a horn, and expanding chords outline a fragile minor-key melody that yields to reverb-soaked horns. "Visage" foregrounds three-horn textures with elegiac, slowly shifting harmonies and a graceful, Stars of the Lid–like lyricism. Subsequent pieces strip tonal center away: static, hissing breath, percussive taps, and insect- and wing-like textures create an atmosphere of disintegration. Spelunking experiences and a primal fear of the dark inform the cave motif. Later tracks juxtapose lyrical soloing against nature recordings before long, elliptical loops of staticky bursts dissolve musical certainties.
Read at Pitchfork
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