Voiceless by Atariame

Russian musician Natalia Salmina’s latest creation as Atariame, Voiceless, arose in the wake of a dissociative relocation to Moscow, where she found herself adrift amidst the metropolis, alone in a skyscraper staring out at trees: “It made me lose faith in my ability to communicate, in my ideas about life.” Days without speaking turned to weeks. Even in private she felt estranged from her voice, and soon ceased singing.

For solace she turned to her Waldorf Blofeld, mining its panoramic frequencies to craft a shivering suite of futurist-noir nocturnes and rhythmic noise vignettes. Song titles hint at the headspace – “Outside At 5 AM,” “Same Thought All Day,” “Stay Late” – mirroring the music’s mood of hood up, headphones on, wandering empty tunnels under flickering streetlights. Enigmatically, Salmina slips in a sliver of spectral voice on the intro and exit tracks (“Breathe Exercise” and “Deconstruction”), framing them as induction into and escape from the cryptic isolationist condition of the rest of the collection.

≈ waves ∞°°°°°
Ambient, progressive, shoegaze