ZapTown

Mako Sica
Dual Horizon
La Société Expéditionnaire
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Link: http://www.myspace.com/makosica

I love the sound of a wind chime. I grew up around that sound. The clanking of metal or wood provide a ritualized ceremony of random tonal structure. You watch close enough, and you swear there is a hidden motive behind the movements of each chime, something equally mesmerizing as mathematical.

The wind chime also reminds me of the feeling of openness I get when I leave the doors open on a sunny evening in the spring, letting the sound of the world and nature invade my surroundings. Outside, it’s a constant reminder through the harmonious songs of our atmosphere.

“I’Itoi,” has that open-aired feeling. The essence of this song watches over you, keeping you safe throughout the elements of time and motion. Named after a mythological Native American god who lives in a mountain cave and watches over the desert, the wind chimes scatter across sound dimension into a magical place, with a primitiveness that co-exists with the experimental values of this song. Vocal chanting sets the mood, and we know that we are not in for a normal journey.

The mysticism behind Dual Horizon will easily have you lost in their spiritualism and angst. I had this playing while shopping last night, an hour before the Target store closed. Very few people were walking around and in no time, I was not only immersed in the mood of the song, but I was surrounded by what felt like desolation. No one was to be found, carts were strung out in aisles. I had just found the soundtrack to the end of the world.

Recorded by Todd Rittmann from D. Rider and U.S. Maple, the forces behind this album serves as a testament to the beautiful, the haunting, and the ritualistic.

It’s not all ambient markings and soft textures of naturalized renderings, Dual Horizons takes you from the inner spirit to the outer realms of psychedelia as “I’itoi” crescendoes into what sounds like 90 Day Men soaked in sweat after an hour into a live set.

With only three songs captured (the finale “Dunes” is a 20-plus minute escapade into the dark underbelly of tribalism and post-rock expression), it’s an album that will leave your jaw dropped that music could be expressed so vividly in this fashion.

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