The new album of the YODOK III is the second live recording of the trio that is released on 2016. The trio of Norwegian, Trondheim-based drummer Tomas Järmyr, tuba and fligabone player Kristoffer Lo with Belgian guitarist Dirk Serries coordinated the release of the new live album – «The Mountain Of Void – Live At Roadburn 2016» – with a box-set that that collects the trio first studio albums – the 2012 debut recording «YODOK III» (2014) and the 2014 double-album «The Sky Flashes, The Great Sea Yearns» (2015), released before only as a limited-edition of only 240 vinyls.
YODOK III performances were always epic and powerful sonic rituals. These free-improvised rituals are highly intense blend of minimalist-atmospheric textures with psychedelic-metallic drone sounds, rich in details. The trio kept refining the building of these dense monoliths of sounds, determined to reach the inevitable cathartic climax. The performance at the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands on April, 16, 2016, expands the trio aesthetics and suggests a further refinement of the trio singular aesthetics.
The 45-minutes «The Mountain Of Void» experiments with more conflictual, loose and stormy atmosphere, even in its most quiet, contemplative segments. Järmyr keeps drumming as if he is possessed by a brutal, manic spirit, mercilessly hitting the drum set like it was a machine-gun; Serries guitar attacks are more free-associative and aggressive, coloring the interplay with a subtle, noisy feedback; the amplified tuba and flugabone of Lo intensifies the massive walls of sounds with claustrophobic, otherworldly ones. The patient, ritualistic development of previous performances of YODOK III is transformed into a much more urgent ceremony, apocalyptic in its tone. The trio sounds now as flirting with evil, dark spirits, as if YODOK III were attuned to the current times threatening-tempting global forces that may drown us all in a dark void. The trio arresting sonic ritual sounds as if attempting to cast its powerful sonic spells that may distance us all from these evil forces.
Eyal Hareuveni
Tomas Järmyr (dr), Kristioffer Lo (amplified tuba, flugabone), Dick Serries (el-g)
