Niton – Tiresias

Artist: Niton

Album: Tiresias

Label: Pulver & Asche

Genre: Experimental, Ambient

Niton's music is engaging experimental music at its best. I have to say that I have a soft spot for music based on analogue synthesizers, and Niton's latest album, “Tiresias”, offers just that and more, adding mystic pipes, various objects that produce sounds, a six strings banjo and a cello to the mix. On their second album, the trio created what could easily be the soundtrack of an apocalyptic movie: dark tones abounds, strange noises unfolds sparingly and the musician's playing is tense. Niton's equipment list consist of various legendary vintage synthesizers, among them the Roland SH-101, the Memorymoog, the Korg MS-20 and the frail Korg Poly 800. While the gear is vintage, the music on Tiresias is timeless. However, the opposite could have been true due to the vintage nature of the gear (for instance, an analog sequencer from the seventies is used), but the sound production is both modern and flawless. Everything sound bold and deep giving the album a very contemporary sound. Xelius, one of the band's member, did a great job mastering the album and his experience as a sound technician certainly helped a lot on that aspect. Conceptually, the band's approach was to make different sound sources collide into a continuous flow of live electronic. Hence the classical strings “conversing” with the analogue synthesizers and noise objects (a heater, some springs and a fan). Most of the tracks on the album evolve into a very pleasurable cathartic ending. It really shows that it took fifteen months of work to compose and record the album. Each piece is well thought out and develop in a natural way. What we have here is a rich in tones and atmosphere album, easy to listen to and superbly produced.