An Un World＜Colored Vinyl＞

Andrew Liles offers little hope or joy on his meticulously crafted album An Un World. Over the course of 14 tracks comprised of various sound sources tweaked into dark ambient soundscapes, the producer carries you through an often fantastic, sometimes frightening world of sound, characterized by its tone more than its individual components. Every song features its own unique palette of sounds. For example, indecipherable voices murmur beneath a haunting wind-like buzz on "Over Before It Began," and a locked-groove piano record loops infinitely beneath a hushed monsoon of rain-like static on the title track. Just as the album comes to a calm yet harrowing close, "Left Behind" lumbers on for over 13 minutes, carried along by ghostly ambient tones that waver slightly and seem somehow natural, in an otherworldly kind of way. It's a truly disquieting epic that summarizes the tone of this album more than any other song here. The fact that it lumbers on and on only confirms its haunting quality and, in a way, brings An Un World to a fitting conclusion. Such wonderfully dreary music obviously isn't intended for the masses, but taken for what it is, Liles' work here continually startles you, both with its hushed subtlety and psychological effect. ~ Jason Birchmeier