The newest album from Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith continues the journey underway via the last two Bella Union releases. The journey is one that's nearly impossible to describe, seeing as how these albums bridge not only cultures but techniques. Less rock and more ambient, Peradam, out today, is fairly mellow but it remains focused. Patti Smith's narration gives this some momentum, and the rather low-key instrumentation makes this feel as light as a dream in spots.
Based upon René Daumal’s early 1940s novel Mount Analogue: a Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, Peradam progresses with a stately, if precise grace. "Peradam" is sparsely ornamented with bits of instrumentation, including faint percussive, while "Knowledge of the Self" succeeds due to Smith's spoken-word performance. "Spiritual Death" is even better, Patti's work here echoing the title cut of her own Easter album so many decades ago. Charlotte Gainsbourg appears briefly on the "The Four Cardinal Times", while "Hymn to the Liquid" hits its mark thanks to the distant percussion that clangs throughout this number.
Peradam demands a listener's full attention, and that's a rare thing to say about any album in 2020. Stephan Crasneanscki and Simone Merli, Soundwalk Collective, intend this to be the final piece of a triptych of releases. And while there was a fevered poetic vibe in spots on the earlier ones inspired by Rimbaud and Artaud, this one is gentler throughout. At least superficially. There's a heaviness here but it's in the words intoned by Smith, not in the instrumentation. The music is nearly soothing, although at times it veers into something that is faintly unsettling. Things never erupt, and a listener can hang onto Smith's vocals as a child would hang on an adult's hand in the dark. This is truly a journey of a record, and while it stands on its own, Peradam works best as the culmination of the voyage begun on The Peyote Dance and continued on Mummer Love, both in 2019.
Peradam is out now via Bella Union.
[Photo: Bella Union]