Foreign Body Sensation & Justin Maranga Premiere “In the Lair of the 5-Sided Serpent”; Subterranean Environments Out March 31
This Friday, Feb. 24, Los Angeles-based imprint Dune Altar will release the first single from the debut collaboration from Foreign Body Sensation and Justin Maranga, titled Subterranean Environments. The album — which is out March 31 — contains four tracks running a manageable 38 minutes of evocative and immersive ambient sounds, various drones on guitar peppered with vague samples as on “Bioluminescent Synesthesia,” wooden tongue drum on “In the Layer of the 5-Sided Serpent” (premiering below), melodic wash on “Cenote Meditation” or the loosely cinematic comings and goings of “Dream Cave Floating Photo Double,” which sprawls its wash over 10 minutes and offers some spiritual redemption in its at-least-I-think-it’s piano-laced second half before drifting back into the ether from whence it came.
Well credentialed as the two parties involved are — Foreign Body Sensation is multi-instrumentalist Louis Schultz of Nightjacket, Army Navy, and who has a few Emmy nominations for sound editing to his credit, and Justin Maranga, who not only founded and runs Dune Altar, but is known for his songwriting, guitar, vocals, etc., work in anti-derivative prog-psych breadth-bakers Ancestors as well as the let-loose classic rockers Night Horse — and given the nature of the work itself across Subterranean Environments, it isn’t really a shock that their material is fluid and unfolds with a patient kind of fluidity. “Bioluminescent Synesthesia” runs 14 minutes and is both opener and longest track (immediate points), with a distinct keyboard line over swelling and receding drones.
It starts with some distant radio static but before it’s passed the two-minute mark, the listener is already surrounded by its headphone-worthy depth of mix and the reach of its auroral waveforms. The static returns, loosely post-apocalyptic, as the piece moves into its midsection, but there’s more here than sci-fi (or actual) end of the world scenarios, and the light that the title hints toward seems to come to the fore later on over that same melancholy keyboard line, weaving in and around until the radio finds its song and closes out, letting “Cenote Meditation” — is it a meditation on C? safe to presume — which like “In the Lair of the 5-Sided Serpent” as noted below feels fleshed out from an initial studio improvisation.
But fleshed way out, mind you. Guitar drifts far back, and maybe it’s Moog or something on the lower end, with manipulated effects up front, but the sound is farther away, and if you want to go ahead and close your eyes and take a couple belly breaths, indeed it’s true to its title in being a safe space for that. That is to say, there’s no explosion coming, which in context is a relief, and though “Cenote Meditation” is the shortest track (complementing the opener and capping a vinyl side A), it is not as still as it feels, finding a krautrocky line of low end synth in its second half while the guitar and other keys or hand-chimes move dynamically through and out.
This lets the harp-strum classic you’re-dreaming-now-like-it’s-tv beginning of “Dream Cave Floating Photo Double” commence with an immediate sense of waking, but yes, waking in a dream — self-aware titles or at least ones offering some potential explanation of intent or after-the-fact narrative are a hallmark of the style — and exploring the unconscious with outstretched hands leaving trails behind them as they move through a dense-feeling air.
There’s a build happening in “Dream Cave Floating Photo Double,” or at least an acquisition of more layers, and it might be Subterranean Environments‘ richest piece in terms of how much is actually happening, but at no point is it overbearing or out of line with what surrounds. Rather, when played all together, the four tracks flow easily into each other and give a whole-album sense of the listening experience. That is, on their own, they might take you to a different place, but listening all at once, the going is by no means rough. I wouldn’t say the penultimate cut has a payoff necessarily in the way one might think of drums crashing to a big rock finish or some such, but it leaves an impression just the same.
And with the maybe-looped hand percussion moving like water in a stream while the guitar is the sunlight reflecting off the surface, “In the Layer of the 5-Sided Serpent” is perhaps where we’ve gone in that dream cave, the non-lyric vocals of Mollie Weaver of Mihi Nihil (the ‘h’s are pronounced like ‘k’s, apparently) marking a human presence without really being anymore grounded than the guitar or synth, that sun drum continuing to do the work of adding a current of movement beneath the surrounding airiness. There isn’t danger in the lair, and it doesn’t feel like we’re there to steal some treasure or a egg made of rare-element gemstones, but the continuing of the light percussion after the other instrumentation fades away seems to hold us in place for a time nonetheless, until its own fadeout ends the album. Perhaps some look-it-in-the-eye hypnotic resonance there lingering in the brain.
I have neither the qualifications to, nor, honestly, the interest in name-dropping influences here, but ambient music, minimalist kraut electronics and modern cosmic psych drift are loose aesthetic touchstones for what’s happening in these Subterranean Environments. Schultz and Maranga engage in a fair amount of world building (if that didn’t come through above) and offer opportunity for their audience — which will not be everybody, but those who give due attention will be rewarded in kind — to either lose themselves in the procession or try to reach out and grab each bit of ethereality on the air as it moves past. Happy trails, in any case.
If you either are or can put yourself in a place to meet it properly, you’ll find “In the Lair of the 5-Sided Serpent”
Subterranean Environments is the first collaborative release from multi-instrumentalists Justin Maranga (Ancestors, Night Horse, Dune Altar) and Foreign Body Sensation [aka Louie Schultz (Army Navy, Nightjacket). The album is an instrumental journey through infernal atmospheres via hypnotic ambient textures and haunting melody.
“In the Lair of the 5-Sided Serpent” is the lead single off of “Subterranean Environments”, the first collaborative release from multi-instrumentalists Justin Maranga (Dune Altar, Ancestors, Night Horse) and Foreign Body Sensation. It features a heavily manipulated improvisational vocal performance from MOLLIE WEAVER (Mihi Nihil). With the constant rhythm of a sun drum as its backbone, the sound is inviting, though the alien wails become threateningly unfamiliar. Jarring moments remind you that whether underground or on it, we’re all suspended in space.
Initially recorded as a live-in-studio improvisation in 2019 by FBS and Maranga, the piece was edited and added to over time. When “Subterranean Environments” was finally mixed and sequenced, something still seemed to be missing from “In the Lair…”. The pair invited Mihi Nihil vocalist Mollie Weaver to improvise a wordless performance over their music, and what she returned with truly embodied the soul of their 5-Sided Serpent.
Tracklist:
1. Bioluminescent Synesthesia (14:29)
2. Cenote Meditation (6:38)
3. Dream Cave Floating Photo Double (10:24)
4. In the Lair of the 5-Sided Serpent (7:24)
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