Talvihorros is a Londonbased experimental guitarist more commonly known to friends and family as Ben Chatwin. ‘Descent into Delta’ is his third record following debut ‘Some Ambulance’ and last years ‘Music in Four Movements’.
I was introduced to Chatwin’s music by mutual friend and collaborator Matthew Collings and was immediately captivated by his skill at manipulation and production of dense, atmospheric music. He creates pieces that border on drone using a variety of instruments to compliment the heavily drenched guitar compositions.
This, his third record, ‘Descent into Delta’ represents the move from a fully alert state to one of sleep and rest. This is achieved through 5 distinct pieces of music ‘Gamma’, ‘Beta’, ‘Alpha’, ‘Theta’ and ‘Delta’, which flow so beautifully into one another that it is almost impossible to identify where one piece ends and another begins. This in itself adds to the wonderful feeling of sleep descending that is so perfectly portrayed by this wonderful record. Starting life as improvisations these pieces have gone through some serious editing and processing to create a record that achieves exactly what its creator intended. As the distortions swell and flow, instrumentation punctuates the spaces creating a world of dream and sleep that seeps ever so slowly into your brain leaving you in a heavenly state of relaxation. It’s kind of like the feeling that you get when you’re tired but awake and you start to read a book. It’s that feeling of alertness, then the sudden onset of sleep, the battle to remain awake followed by the inevitable book falling from your hands on to the floor. It’s simply brilliant.
I cannot get enough of this record to be perfectly honest and I am very much looking forward to seeing both Talvihorros and Matthew Collings perform live this weekend. Should be an awesome experience.
For those of you who don’t know anything about Talvihorros please check out his work here. For those of you who do know about his work then you will hopefully be in agreement that this record places him firmly at the top of his game alongside his contemporaries and, probably, his idols too. Another fantastic release by Hibernate Recordings. Another big step forward in the career of Ben Chatwin. Enjoy.
