Taiga Remains - ribbons of dust (2008, Root Strata)

Taiga Remains is the solo project of Alex Cobb. Released at first as a series of three 3-inch CDR on Alex Cobb's own label Students of Decay, “Ribbons of Dust” has been reissued on Root Strata. 

It features four instrumental drone tracks for a total length of just below one hour. It's winter, and we can contemplate a bleak landscape blemished under an heavy fog. There is dust, there is frost, an almost mineral quality and we keep the warmth preciously inside us, through infrared and silent sensations.

It's drone music played with electric guitar and effects, it's minimal, without added sounds, without experimentation behind the established aesthetic standard. There are certainly better things in this style, there is no deep revelation at the end of the tunnel, but somewhat it still perfectly works, like a purge, we are pilgrims on a processional trip, moving forward with difficulties. 

It's close to the darkest side of Windy and Carl, or to the early discography by the Stars of the Lid or Labradford, but with more homogeneity. Alex Cobb doesn't want to impress us, he seems instead lost himself, wordless in his own word and through this personal integrity manages to transmit a certain intensity.

I like this record as an authentic experience, with repetitions, but I'm not sure I completely enjoy it. It doesn't make me dream, it sounds real instead, like being in an old empty church in the middle of nowhere.

http://www.myspace.com/studentsofdecay

http://rootstrata.com/