(written by Islander)
A few weeks ago the Greek band Föhn released a video for “Bereft,” the first advance track from their debut album Condescending, which will be released on August 23rd by Hypaethral Records in North America and These Hands Melt in Europe. I paid attention to it after seeing the album described as “avant-garde funeral doom” and realizing that the song included performances by two saxophonists. I then urgently wrote 330 words about it, just the one song.
Granted, “Bereft” is more than 13 minutes long, but even 330 words probably still didn’t do it justice.
When I spilled all those words I didn’t know we would be asked to host the premiere of a second song from Condescending, but that happened, and so I’m afraid you’re in for a lot more words. But mainly what you’re in for is yet another profoundly powerful piece of music, this one named “A Day After“.
Photo by Sakis Vlachakis, edited by Arnaud-Daval
“A Day After” was also the song that constituted Föhn‘s first demo a couple of years ago. I haven’t tried to compare the two versions to identify differences. Especially because I managed to miss the demo, I’m content to focus solely on the album track, which is the one that immediately follows “Bereft“. It too is more than 13 minutes long.
In fact all four songs on Condescending are long ones, with “The Weight of Nothing” getting close to 13 minutes, and “Persona” exceeding 17. But in none of them is there a risk of the listener’s mind wandering, because their impact is bone-deep.
The band’s guitarist and drummer Georgios Schoinianakis has told us this about “A Day After“:
I consider myself quite lucky I had the chance and opportunity to travel the world. It wasn’t until 2016 that I saw these underweight children with torn clothes on a remote island somewhere in Indonesia. All these shattered homes, the dirt, the hunger. I cannot forget that boy’s eyes. I cannot forget how he was silently craving for his innocence. It made me think, “Where have I forgotten my innocence? Where did the child in me go?”. And there I was, a day after… or was it just yesterday?”.
I tried to sum up “Bereft” as “nightmarish” and “soul crushing”, a dark and oppressive experience that ultimately descends deep into moods of tragedy and heartbreak, guided in part through experimental ingredients (including the avant-jazz renderings of those two saxophones) not typically found in funeral doom. “A Day After” might be more in keeping with traditional funeral doom, but it has its own unexpected experiences.
Photo by Sakis Vlachakis, edited by Arnaud-Daval
Its opening phase is pastoral and even cinematic, soft and spellbinding, but also haunting. Its gossamer lightness just makes the detonating heaviness of what comes next even more staggering.
And stagger the music does, like the strides of a mile-high giant whose every slow step fractures mountains apart. As the drums methodically crack and boom, the chords reverberate on and on, drawing out their wrenching groans while shrill wailing tones also ethereally ring, and abyssal roars and stricken howls cast their own harrowing echoes.
The effects are pulverizing on both a physical and emotional level, shaking not just the earth but also whatever may pass for souls. Subtle variations in the instrumentation emerge, and Föhn also shift the focus, silencing their massive death march to make way for other ethereal excursions, in which brittle notes ring like tears turning to ice as they fall.
Near the end the song also introduces deep, solemn singing and the quavering of what might be angels pouring out their grief from on high, creating a striking finale that’s no less aching at a bone-deep level but far more hallowed, beautiful, and grand, and therefore even more tragic.
If you’re like me, you really won’t notice the minutes passing. More likely, you’ll shake yourself like a wet dog, trying to restore yourself to wherever you were at the start (but the spell will continue on for a while, regardless). At the end I wondered where the time went, asking myself, “It’s not over so soon, is it?”
FÖHN is:
Georgios Schoinianakis – guitar, drums
Nikos Vlachakis – vocals
Georgios Miliaras – bass
Condescending was recorded from January ’23 to May ’23 by Babis Tzanidakis and G. Schoinianakis at Timeless Recording Studios in Eleusis, Greece. It was mixed and mastered by the great Greg Chandler (Esoteric) at Priory Recording Studios in Birmingham, England.
Condescending will be released on White Vinyl 2xLP, digipak CD, MC, and digital formats. North American fans can preorder all versions now at the Hypaethral Records webshop and Bandcamp, linked below. European audiences can find the record at These Hands Melt‘s Bandcamp and webshop, also linked below.
And after the links, you can immerse yourself in the afore-mentioned video for “Bereft“.
PRE-ORDER – HYPAETHRAL:
https://hypaethralrecords.bandcamp.com/album/condescending
https://hypaethralrecords.com/collections/fohn
PRE-ORDER – THESE HANDS MELT:
https://thesehandsmelt.shop/products/fohn-condescending-gatefold-2lp
https://thesehandsmelt.bandcamp.com/album/condescending
FÖHN:
https://www.instagram.com/foehnofficial
https://www.facebook.com/foehnofficial
https://www.foehngr.com
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