Abul Mogard demands your attention on And We Are Passing Through Silently

Let’s hope not. Abul Mogard’s new album of collected reworks demands your time, your attentiveness and your best soundsystem to truly fulfill its promise.

As the story goes, Mogard is a retired Serbian factory worker who was drawn to music synthesis in order to replicate the clattering of the factory-floor that he had become accustomed to for most of his life. True or not, this idea of being engulfed or submerged in sound is exactly how Mogard’s music makes you feel. You drown in its almost overpowering weight.

With only one remix under 10 minutes long, each track is drawn and stretched, distorted and pulled to the brink of shattering completely. White noise is fused with mechanical drones and hums as strings and chords creak and grind within the spirals of noise. Mogard uses vocals to reflect a human component amongst the mechanical cogs as they slowly turn. Aïsha Devi’s voice is filtered and twisted to become a distant, drawn-out whisper. His reworking of “London South” by Nick Nicely creates an even more eerie overtone than the original that inspired it. Nicely’s voice sounds as if it is being transmitted from another galaxy, crackling and dissolving between the space-dust.

The record cascades into its bewitching and harrowing finale, “We Dream All The Dark Away”. The song begins with a desolate organ playing a melody that feels left behind, a lingering memory from a moment you can’t quite place. The notes are left to wander and tread softly until a siren’s song draws you closer – the beckoning voice of Fovea Hex calling you to the depths.

The sonic worlds that Mogard creates are astounding; they’re like living, breathing organisms. They rise and fall, inhale and exhale, and squeeze you within their walls. This is not music to dip in and out of, this is music designed to flood your senses, to help you fill the void when all falls silent.