Another funny review:
i AM esper - Glowing Valleys
Some long time ago I've got a pile of CDrs from now defunct Dark Meadows recordings. Maybe there's no reason to review these since the label is already dead, but somehow I'd feel slight guilt if I don't pay attention to these works. i AM esper is Justin Palmieri drone/ambient project from USA and Glowing Valleys - one of more than 50 albums that were released in the last couple of years. I'm usually rather sceptic about such huge discographies, but there are exceptions. CDr is packed in the plastic envelope and after looking at the covers I see couple of other weird things. First of all - track titles that are peak of originality. What about "The Dark Fog" or "Stars Above the Frozen Forest"? And another thing is the insert with dedication to the girl and cat, and the place of recording - "my lime green room". I smell adolescence with tearful egocentrism and sincerity plus hipsterism. Well, first impression might be not that good, but I put the disc into the player and after couple of seconds I'm thinking that I made a mistake, judging this artist like that and the album is rather decent. But several minutes pass and I change my opinion and regret thinking like that before. Now I'm impatiently waiting when the track will end, but it does not and painfully continues to infinity. Glowing valleys is lightly melancholic boredom with playing time of more than 45 minutes. It's guitar drone with delayed guitar and some shoegaze-like fast playing on the higher notes that can possibly mean sadness, beauty and tedium. If you take any track separately, you can divide it into short segments of dozen of seconds that repeat, and repeat, and repeat... It's ok to listen how the track starts, but all these stars, fogs, dews and darknesses of nights, lasting for more than 10 minutes is more than enough. If I understand it correctly, esper means having various paranormal abilities. If this is true, Justin Palmieri has paranormal ability to get you bored and tired of his sounds. Now I'm listening to the track called "Mid Night" (original, isn't it?) and it's the ninth minute when I hear some beats in the background and melody of 4 high notes. Well, perhaps there is some deeper meaning in all this monotonous and primitive melodies apart from the inability to play, but desire to have a band or a project with the prefix "post-" at best. But I don't get this and all in all I'm nervous about such musical onanism and excessive sincere romance in couple tens of CDrs, dedicated to cats and girls. My cat, for example, looks at me very sad with one open eye and I think he asks me why I'm torturing him with this album. Well, if you have ever heard the delayed guitar and had a chance to listen to the 27th original post-rock/ambient/drone project of local teenager, just pour in some tedium and you'll get i AM esper - Glowing Valleys of Boredom. I'd recommend you to avoid this record.
