Wordclock – A Greater Bliss (Album – Cryo Chamber)
Genre/Influences: Cinematographic.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Portuguese artist Pedro Pimentel strikes back with the fourth opus of his Wordclock project. The album comes four years after the last work “Heralds”. Pimentel again invited several guest musicians to complete the work and a few of them already contributed to the last album. Pedro Pimentel is taking care of the electronics, synths and plays different traditional instruments of European and Middle Eastern origin. Travis Laplante (US) plays saxophone, Amund Ulvestad (Norway) plays cello and did some vocals as well, Luis Neto (Portugal) plays percussion and George Shamanauri (Georgy) from Phonotek plays trumpet.
Content: The work is an evasive sonic voyage moving from dark and mysterious passages into smoother reverie driven by slow rhythms. You’ll notice a choir injecting a spiritual dimension to the work while some passages have something pretty jazzy-like.
+ + + : Wordclock remains an interesting project for its atypical approach. Pedro Pimentel holds on the mixture between electronics and sound manipulation at one side and the use of authentic instruments at the other side. It creates an authentic feeling, which is mainly emerging during the cello and trumpet play. “Beatific” is one of these tracks and an absolute masterpiece, which is accentuated by the melancholia of the cello sound. The trumpet also injects a higher dimension to the album, also creating this lazy, jazzy style.
– – – : I don’t have real minus points, but I’m sure this artist is still able to do better.
Conclusion: Wordclock remains an atypical project because of its authentic elements. This is my personal favorite Wordclock-production.
Best songs: “Beatific”, “Weighed Upon Us”, “By Becoming It”.
Rate: 8.
Artist: www.facebook.com/wordclock
Label: www.cryochamberlabel.com / www.facebook.com/CryoChamber
About Wordclock
Wordclock is the dark ambient and cinematic project of Portuguese musician Pedro Pimentel. Discogs lists “Endless” in 2014 as the earliest entry, followed by the soundtrack “Noct (OST)” on Laced Records in 2015.
Cryo Chamber released the second album, “Self Destruction Themes”, in December 2015, and the video “A Lack of Language” appeared the same month. “Heralds” followed on the label. Pimentel also contributed to the Cryo Chamber Collaboration albums “Azathoth”, “Nyarlathotep”, “Yig” and “Dagon”.
“A Greater Bliss” was released by Cryo Chamber on 14 September 2021 in digital and CD formats. Pimentel handled composition, engineering, electronics, synths, santoor, saz, guitar and bass. Amund Ulvestad played cello and contributed voice, Travis Laplante played saxophone, Luis Neto played percussion and assisted with production, and George Shamanauri played trumpet. James Plotkin mastered the album, David Glomba supplied the artwork and Simon Heath designed the digipak.
The nine tracks are “By Becoming It”, “Meant”, “The Spirit Chokes”, “Weighed Upon Us”, “The Less of Me”, “Binding With Briars”, “Beatific”, “Unbecoming” and “Come, Triumph”.
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