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June 7, 2019 - Pampa Records
Robag Wruhme is back with his third album, Venq Tolep. It’s been eight years since his second album, Thora Vukk, and fifteen years since his first album, Wuzzelbud KK. I’m not sure how pertinent that information is, as Robag Wruhme is a musical genius of such prowess that concepts as base as time and space do not affect him.
We open the package. We see the record. We are immediately filled with a sense of direction and isolated discovery due to the cover image depicting stylized versions of the glyphs used on the Voyager Golden Record and Pioneer Plaque, both prominently located on the List of Artificial Objects Leaving the Solar System. In addition, a solitary figure is seen looking out over a beautiful autumnal mountain-scape a few meters from their landing craft. The scene has been set.
We play the music. We recognize this feeling. Robag’s signature saturates every noise, every frequency. ‘Advent’ mixes emotional field sampling with synthetic percussive elements, natural rhythm, the angelic voice of Lysann Zander, and a sense of softness together in delicate folds. The music laps in and out like the ocean tide. ‘Westfal’ features Zander’s vocals again, a bit more directly but no less abstractly. The track is more plucky, more focused. ‘Iklahx’ loses the focus promptly, meandering down a near beat-less path of white noise-hedged lazy chords. ‘Ak-Do 5’ snaps into place, combining the raw elements of the previous three cuts to draw us back to melodic moody dance headspace of 2011’s Donnerkuppel EP. ‘Volta Copy - Ambient Version,’ as the name would suggest, floats ambiently up as a sort of respite from the first half of the project. It is only after the next track comes in that we realize ‘Volta Copy - Ambient Version’ was nothing more than a floating island blocking our view of the second half of ‘Ak-Do 5.’
‘Komalh’ drops us back into the headspace mentioned before, though slightly brighter and more hopeful. Its jazz infused roots show through, if ever so slightly. ‘Ago Lades’ comes in strong with one of the most infectious slice-of-life percussive grooves of the album. Its less-than-a-minute runtime is the worst part of the whole project. ‘Venq Tolep’ is next, a single we have been nursing for months. It plods along in grand fashion, like a train with the hiccups. Robag brings the organic together with the mechanical in such a way that feels inevitable. The music isn’t questioned. It is what it is. It exists, and it is wonderful. ‘Bézique Atout' builds on what was started with ‘Komalh,’ with the musings of French producer Oxia permeating throughout, building to a deceptively melodic piano riff. ‘Nata Alma’ proves to be the best rendition of Sidsel Endresen and Bugge Wesseltoft’s ‘You Might Say’ to date. It takes the positive emotional landscape the project has been crafting and turns the focus to the sunset, the ending, the time forgotten. Things suck, but that’s okay. Like I can see objectively how things are, and that makes me feel better. I can keep going.
‘Ende #2’ takes its cue from the projects mentioned in the List of Artificial Objects Leaving the Solar System. It features humans, real humans, recording their voices while speaking. A semi-sad-very-aware melodic line plays in the background. The voices list off their names and general locations, sometimes greeting Robag (Gabor), and then they count up from one to two to three. Sometimes they go too far and count to four. This is okay. This is human. This is an exploration. This is traveling through time and space. This is being in time and space. Robag Wruhme is not a musical genius of such prowess that he is above base concepts. He is a human. He is here with the rest of us humans on this planet, and that is a beautiful thing. 🍍