Inspired by the book of the same name by the now dead Winifred Ellerman Bryher archaeologist, film-maker, novelist and secretive lady-lover to poet and former sweetheart of Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, ‘The Days Of Mars’ is the first full length album from New York artists Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom and the first brave step into extending the visionary soundscape that took shape with the release of the pair’s hypnotic ‘El Monte’ single in 2004.
Already firmly established in the art-world for a flurry of ridiculous pursuits in guerrilla theatre, absurdist dance shows and a host of similarly potty ‘performance’ escapades, ‘The Days Of Mars’ sees these quirky kindred spirits cosseting their love of the spurious and indulgent with four quarter of an hour designs in sound: Rise, Releveé, 13 Moons and Black Springs. And who better to indulge them than those genre, gender and spoon bending DFA folks? Ambient extrapolations, electronic pulses, endlessly cyclic sequencers, incandescent drones, murmuring vibrations, squelches and zero-gravity riffs make up much of what’s on offer in a style not dissimilar to Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo Atmospheres and Soundtracks’ (1986) or the densely progressive output of the much challenged and beleaguered, Robert Fripp and whilst it’s not altogether unappealing, the record’s gentle dreamy ripples of ether states fails to really excite the old ear membranes.
If the record has a mythological slant, it’s because the book has a mythological slant and perhaps both ought to be observed in tandem. It’s art so it must be good, and the fact it’s being released by the illustrious DFA naturally makes it doubly so.