Days of Light By HoFrAn

Days of Light

By

HoFrAn

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

It’s nice to catch up with a fellow electronic artist, especially one that’s new to me in HoFrAn. However I’m glad I did, I can see that this new album Days Of Light is going to become another favourite of mine, and within its imperial weave I find many likeness to heroes of my past. In a future that is brimming full of promise for the artist. It becomes a journey inward, a meeting place between imagination and atmosphere, and a gentle reminder that music can still offer us a little sanctuary from the relentless noise of everyday life.

The opening piece is a particular favourite of mine and called Oracle, its tonal specifics and vibrations strike a sensitive chord within my musical soul, and reminded me at times of the amazing Forrest Smithson and his steady synth and keyboard progressions. It is an intriguing way to begin an album whose identity appears rooted in discovery.

Riddles has a more punctuated opening to its build and progression, the keyboard and percussion gifting this track a wonderfully powerful but fluent vibe. There is also something deeply human about the title. Our lives are filled with riddles that have no immediate solutions: memories that change with time, relationships that resist simple explanations, and moments of unexpected clarity that arrive when we have stopped searching for them. Music can give these experiences a voice without needing to explain them.

The following narrative was one of my many favourites from this outstanding album and called Time. With elements of the aforementioned Smithson, there is a floating tone here that is deeply palpable and interesting. In electronic music, time can be approached through repetition, gradual transformation and the relationship between expectation and change. A recurring musical idea can create a sense of stability, while subtle variations can alter our perception of what is happening. The listener may feel that the music is moving forward, circling around a thought, or inhabiting a moment that seems to exist outside ordinary chronology. This is explored so well by the artist on this track, giving the piece, no pun intended, a timeless feel to its overall texture.

There seems to be somewhat of a sea change here as we approach the middle of the album, the tone takes on a darker vibration and a more serious note through the offering Unknowing. With elements of the composer Philippe Wauman aka Anantakara the Belgian composer, one can really flow with the construct of percussive EM. Unknowing takes the conceptual journey into more introspective territory, suggesting a point at which the pursuit of certainty gives way to acceptance. It is an interesting development after Time, because the more we contemplate existence, the more apparent its unanswered questions become.

Tremors is our midway marker, an interesting selection as the piece does indeed have that stable pastiche of tone that is able to hold the album together, glancing back over the journey thus far, and gazing ahead of what paths are still to be trodden. The keyboards are more pronounced here and the chord structures are as equally powerful. The idea is especially relevant to electronic composition, where a sound's smallest changes can potentially alter the emotional character of an entire passage. Modulation, changes in tone and evolving musical patterns can provide a sense of instability without requiring a dramatic shift in volume or tempo.

Journey of Wind is a fascinating voyage, through the percussive textures one can feel a little globally fused journey of sight and sound, then a smooth bed of synths lays a landscape so colourful and fluent it’s breath-taking. For me, if the artist was going to release a single it would be this one that I would point to. Wind is a natural force that can be felt but not held. It crosses landscapes, passes through open spaces and changes direction without asking permission. As a metaphor for freedom, it is difficult to improve upon.

The most fascinating of titles is up next and called Lost in Space Time.  There is something about this piece that would make a good theme for a TV space based show perhaps. There is an onward movement and percussion, driving it forward and some of that Anantakara experimental jazz ethic too. The most of inventive of pieces from the album indeed, by combining the concepts of space and time, HoFrAn invokes a universe in which the familiar rules of everyday experience become less certain. The phrase suggests cosmic distances, temporal dislocation and the possibility of becoming lost in a reality far larger than our own immediate surroundings.

The penultimate offering entitled Rubicon is up next and another one of my personal favourite offerings. According to the famous tradition, Caesar declared: “Alea iacta est”  “The die is cast.” The keyboard work and the percussive intent set the course to cross that famous river, and no turning back will ever occur. Within the album's wider conceptual narrative, it can be understood as the threshold between exploration and resolution. The listener has travelled through uncertainty, considered the mysteries of existence and surrendered to the possibilities of the unknown. Now comes the moment to cross into something different.

That final change heralds the concluding narrative which is entitled Dawn, the cautious start is almost like a back drop relating to the decision to actually cross the aforementioned Rubicon. Yet the most interesting interpretation of Dawn is not that every question has finally been answered. Rather, it is that the listener has reached a point where the questions no longer need to be resolved before the journey can continue, and thus HoFrAn captures not only natural sounds in ambience, but the very essence of ambience in this final but outstanding offering.

Days of Light by HoFrAn is indeed an exceptional album, and one of the finest electronic music albums I have heard for the last five years or so. Nine solid, fluent and artistic masterpieces have been created with an ear that understands the musical nature of colours and tones. The album's track list establishes an imaginative foundation. For listeners attracted to electronic music that encourages reflection and imaginative exploration, Days of Light offers an inviting starting point and one that I am more than happy to recommend.