瀚海瀾汐 - 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (2022)

If Instagram is to be trusted, 瀚海瀾汐 is a solo project by Junny Chung, a musician from the Guangdong region in China. The artist released two short EPs this year and I'll be looking at the first one of the lot, called 趣稚錄 | 遺妄.

Both EPs are said to be parts of a four-piece whole entitled 遺妄 ("The Delusion"). 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (that apparently translates to "Funny and Childish Records") consists of four compositions that show some emotional and atmospheric post-rock music with delicate and very sad vocals. The music is based on the balance between synth's beauty and guitars' ruthless grandeur, in many places achieving those extremely bombastic but very satisfying levels of music emotions that can easily make the listener sob. Especially with the addition of the artsy, theatre-like vocals, so important in the short ballad 扯纸鹞. However, the mountain tops-reaching, uplifting and otherworldly beautiful post-rock sounds are what really defines this album.

趣稚錄 | 遺妄 costs 5 USD.

Check: 再见 阿尔兹海默先生

Country: China

Genre: ethereal post-rock

Label: Weary Bird Records

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KAATAYRA - Inpariquipê (2022)

Caio Lemos comes from Brazil and creates his music under the moniker of KAATAYRA. And it's quite outstanding what he does: the blend of psychedelic rock and black metal makes the last year's Inpariquipê really special.

He also calls his music "acoustic black metal" and I can understand why: the whole compositions are based on the repetitive passages of drums and... pretty exotic-sounding tropical music in the backgrounds. The psychedelic music's ability to mesmerize the audience is all over the place here, which makes the compositions suck the listener in with ease. This tropical component is also extremely interesting; it needs no explanation that black metal is usually connected with cold places (geographically speaking) and when a project's from a country like Brazil (and the South American metal scene is also very strong), they usually embrace the Nordic themes as well. Kaatayra is an exception here; every second of his music says that he's very well connected to the tropical reality around him and I appreciate that.

So where's the metal part in all of this actually? The artist's fifth album is filled with instrumental music mostly, but there are fragments that include his desperate, angry vocals. Still, they feel like they are put in the backgrounds, sounding more like shouting in a wilderness with much anger, but not so much power when compared to the forces of nature. It's perfect in Dundararaiê where the metal vocals additionally get a tribal treatment only empowering the mesmerizing features of the whole album. 

Inpariquipê costs whatever you want to pay (if you buy on the artist's Bandcamp site).

Check: Dundararaiê

Country: Brazil

Genre: tropical acoustic black metal

Label: Weary Bird Records/Pest Productions

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