Labels
ERATP056LP/KRANK188
- A Winged Victory for the Sullen is composer Dustin O'Halloran and Adam Wiltzie, best known for his pivotal drone project Stars Of The Lid. Their debut self-titled album's combination of O'Halloran's exquisite, desolate piano music and Wiltzie's dense drones hardly shook the expectations of anyone familiar with their solo work, but as a duo they felt endlessly capable of producing half-forgotten melancholy.
A Winged Victory's second album, Atomos, which will again be released by Kranky and Erased Tapes, is a slightly different prospect—not a standalone LP, but a score to choreographer Wayne McGregor's dance piece of the same name, which atomises "bodies, movement, film, sound and light into miniature shards of intense sensation." "Atomos VII," the title track of this EP that precedes the album, is expansive, with a greater sense of drama than most drone pieces on their first LP. The sustained string tones swell and lengthen until they take on monumental proportions; when the high-pitched drone and countermelodies join them, the track becomes energetic.
On the "Greenhouse Reinterpretation" of the title track, Ben Frost manipulates elements into thick, scraping tones that sound like less abrasive fragments of his own work. Only "Minuet For A Cheap Piano Number One," an outtake from the debut album, feels out of place, a diversion from the "Atomos VII" pieces where none was needed.
TracklistA1 Atomos VII
A2 Minuet For A Cheap Piano Number One
B1 Atomos VII (Greenhouse Re-Interpretation)