Audiopile Review: Strong collaboration of ritual-ambient from the newly forged duo Unstern, made up of deep-drone/dark-ambient producer Arzat Skia and Leo Svirksy, the latter of whom we last caught on his 2019 album of ecstatic solo piano pieces, River Without Banks, issued on Unseen Worlds. Co-mixed by none other than Civilistjävel!, Unstern merge Leo Svirksy’s compositional chops with Skia’s arresting ambient passages, concocting an album that feels both reverential and deeply personal. Album opener “All the Kingdoms of the World In a Moment Of Time” sets the tone with icy ambient washes redolent of Biosphere, their tidal pull punctuated with pensive piano, while album standout “In The Roar Of Your Channels” deep dives into blissed shoegaze tones, perhaps somewhere near the recent Irisarri/Mogard collab. The pair easily flip between the utterly sublime and sonically austere, the LP oozing emotive resonance. One for the deep listeners out there.

Alter is proud to present the debut full length release from devotional music outfit Unstern, a collaborative effort between deep ambient artist Arzat Skia and prodigal pianist Leo Svirsky.

Co-mixed by Swedish electronic music luminary Civilistjävel! and mastered to tape by Stefan Betke, the album features lush electronics, two pianos refracting across the stereo field, processed recordings from the Peruvian Amazon, bowed percussion by Greg Stuart, alongside strings and renaissance meantone organ recorded at Orgelpark in Amsterdam.

The results are an abundant audio illusion where what seemingly repeats slowly over time morphs in a manner where the destination escapes the departure point with extreme discretion, a reverent nod to Morton Feldman’s compositional method of “Crippled Symmetry.”

Throughout Es Geht Der Tag there is a muted, refined melancholy imbued with a constantly fluctuating pulse which generates a sense of temporal disorientation, leaving the listener lost in a strange yet not at all unfamiliar sonic labyrinth. It is a journey whereby a glorious subtle tension exists between the grandiose and the restrained.

This is environmental music, not in the sense of capturing nature itself, more with regards to an unfolding of audio elements which move in a manner in tune with the multitude of flows in the world.

Unstern’s Es Geht Der Tag is a deep mental journey, rich in subtle transcendental tendencies and psychic liberation.