Bleep

When Ah! Kosmos and Hainbach first collaborated on 2023’s Blast of Sirens, their music was replete with infinite possibility, accessing a playground of gear where they could find the shape of their converging musical practices. Three years later, their voice as a duo is assured, and they zero in on a more contemplative, focussed mood with their second album Gentle Hum.

This time, their joint fascination for the sonic capabilities of nonmusical machinery is the spark. Rather than treat them as failing equipments which can be salvaged, the duo situate these opportunistic instruments as part of a biological network that they tease sounds out of, foregrounding in particular their background noise, hums, and thrums. Alongside synths, piano, organ, cello, and voice, these sound sources form a rich dialogue, speaking to and colliding with each other in feasts of articulation and feeling. The album’s eponymous warmth is immediately noticeable, flowing in with slightly coarse, full and radiating texture accompanied by wailing pangs and passionate sweeps.

These are fluid compositions which consistently cultivate an embracing and emotive atmosphere. Tender strings provide the harmonic bedrock for machinic fluctuations to burst, stutter, and swarm. Drones are simultaneously burnt and frozen, while contrast is explored between frenetic bass pulses and lax, shimmery highs. Nuclear beeps and signals are rendered into strangely alluring acidic melodies on the otherworld of ‘Into The Glare’, then washed away in the chorus of elegant yet forceful tides on ‘Further Than Sunlight’, as Ah! Kosmos and Hainbach search for the songs hidden within oft overlooked sources.