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Asva: What you don’t know is frontier

08/07/09 || Khlysty

This is music born from pain.

On July 14, 2005, Michael Dahlquist, G. Stuart Dahlquist’s brother and drummer for the band Silkworm, was killed in a car crash (another car intentionally plowed in the back of his vehicle, killing him and two of his friends). G. Stuart Dahlquist –a metal notary, with collaborations with Burning Witch, Goatsnake and Sunn 0)))- tried to express his feelings of deepest loss through music, with his newest band, Asva, collaborating into creating one of the most harrowing and emotionally devastating recordings ever to grace our beloved genre and modern music in general.

For those not in the know, Asva is a supergroup of sorts, including – at one time or another – the talents of Dahlquist (bass, guitar), B.R.A.D. (drums, percussion, vocals), Jessica Kenney (vocals), Holly Johnson (vocals), Trey Spruance (guitars, piano, tubular bells), John Schuller (guitars), Milky (guitars) and Troy Swanson (Hammond organ and instrument tweaking). Their first recording (“Futurists Against The Ocean” – 2005) was met with very positive reviews, being a great mix of crushing drones and uplifting melodies. But, this time around things are on another level entirely: “What You Don’t Know Is Frontier” is modern music of the highest caliber, injected with a heavy dose of emotional turmoil and sorrow and taken into planes of unheard-of creativity and power.

The four songs contained here are exceptionally crafted and executed, with Milky’s and Trey Spruance’s guitars and Dahlquist’s bass laying, with exquisitely powerful drones, the foundation of the music, upon which the other members of the band add economically other elements of the composition. The omnipresence of Troy Swanson’s organ gives the music an almost cathedral-like gravitas, while the drums are used sparingly, not for motion but for emphasis and more volume to already voluminous music. The guitars are not used just for droning; instead, upper-register chords, noisy swaths of feedback and wah-ed notes intrude the solemnity of the music, giving it a desperate air of frustration and anger. Also, the vocal performance of Holly Johnson in the haunting, spare “A Game In Hell, Hard Work In Heaven” is unnerving as it is celestially beautiful.

You know, I could go on and on about the merits of this record, but there comes a time when words become obsolete in front of the tortured grandeur of the music. “What You Don’t Know Is Frontier” is a watertight, impossibly dense, compositionally perfect and emotionally devastating piece of modern music. While firmly accepting its roots –drone/avant metal-, it easily transcends the boundaries imposed by said genre and moves way beyond, into experiential territories, where music is the medium and the message. Alien tonalities, subterranean rumblings, airy melodies, all merge into a whole that I suppose that in a few years will be considered as an apex of extreme music, while never relinquishing its emotionality and potency for navel-gazing masturbatory self-indulgence. Great music, great band, go buy and lose yourself.

9,5 out of 10.

Information
Released: 2008
Label: Southern Records
Website: www.myspace.com/asvaband
Band
G. Stuart Dahlquist: bass, guitar
B.R.A.D: drums, percussion, vocals
Trey Spruance: guitar, piano, tubular bells
Milky: guitar
Troy Swanson: Hammond organ, keyboards
Holly Johnson: vocals
Ben Thomas: vibraphone

Tracklist
01. What you don’t know is frontier
02. Christopher Columbus
03. A game in hell, hard work in heaven
04. A trap for judges

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