[Free Download // https://theambiguity.bandcamp.com/album/a-pocketful-of-changes-found-on-the-table]
I've listened to "A Pocketful of Changes Found on the Table" several times through and no matter how I try to take notes it just seems like there's so much going on that the only way to accurately review it is to give you the play-by-play while listening to it so here goes.
We start with something that sounds both dark and curious. There is a certain level of bass to it and yet it also somewhat of an eerie vibe to it, like you can just sense something bad is about to happen in a horror movie. It is that true sense of suspense. In moves in waves, like breathing, and comes with a slight buzzing such as an insect as well. This is one of those fine lines between drone and something else that I've wondered about with Carbon and Soul but in the end it doesn't matter because it's just wonderful and ambient. A little bit of that Darth Vader breathing machine vibe does come out as well, and then the tones are turned into something magical, some sort of crystals. Somewhat drama, somewhat tension, the build begins as we reach the end of the first track and then it just kind of fades out.
The next song begins with soft whooshes and electronic bugs in the background. This has a very ambient feel to it, as it's not really so much drone but just this sense of being in somewhere dark, perhaps damp, and there are just clouds of fog covering your feet. Lasers join the whooshes in some sense as the static begins to crackle, such as a fire about to burn out. It is magical and perhaps even set in space. Some bass comes in and then we begin to take a back and forth note ride towards the end of the song. As with the first song, it just sort of fades out into the nothing.
The opening of the third song is static whirrs which seem to be setting the pace for the rest of the songs as somewhat of an introduction, if you will. This gives way to some quieter sounds, almost minimal as well, as a sense of static fog comes out but it does so in a very dark way. I know that people have different feelings about what darkness can look like (in an evil sense, not in the way that there is an absence of light), but this is surely what it would sound like on some levels. It's just that haunting boiler room flow that I've come to know and love. Quieter and ambient, it feels like we're walking through a cemetary until the tones are changed to something higher, something uplifting. This carries on in a calmer, more peaceful way that doesn't quite seem to have me on edge as much. It quiets down towards the end and doesn't fade out like the first two songs but rather just stops.
Fourth in the line up has quite a long name and it comes in with a ringing sort of drone. This then becomes a dark boiler room/basement type of vibe. It's still drone, but it doesn't sound as haunting because it's just got that deepness to it but not so much of the darkness. It goes back up again to the ringing where it begans and there is almost an underwater and submarine type of feel on this song. Waves can be heard gently crashing on the shore as if this is something coming out from the water.
On the final song it is almost silent as waves and other such sounds come through only in the slightest. No matter how loud I turn it up and no matter how I listen to it, the idea of it being minimal to the point where it almost non-existant just remains and it is very interesting both on the whole and as a final track. This all culminates with one big whoosh and then in an instant the sound of glass shattering.
If you happen upon The Ambiguity Bandcamp page, there are quite a few releases beyond this one. With some which came before it, there have also been some released just this year as this was actually from December of 2014. I've been listening to some of the others and whether or not I'll write about them remains to be seen based upon time, but if you do listen to this and enjoy it (and I think fans of minimal drone darkness will) then be sure to check out all of the other wonderful sounds created by The Ambiguity as well.
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