Grey Interiors

Grey Interiors is a 20-minute piece Actress composed for an installation as part of the Berliner Festspiele, in collaboration with artists Actual Objects. It was released by Smalltown Supersound shortly after the label issued Darren J. Cunningham, a continuous mix of unreleased material previously shared as a Resident Advisor podcast, and it feels like a more compact serving of the same mood as the mix. It starts out with a gloomy drone before a thunder-like noise crashes, and detached pianos build an atmosphere. Faint traces of voices glitch and shudder, and weightless grime bass drops in, letting it be known that there is a path to be followed through this ether, even if its obscured most of the time. There are rumblings and ticking rhythms that suggest the formation of a beat, but when one finally crashes in at 11 minutes, its far louder than one expects, almost sounding like a DJ dropped the next track in the mix prematurely. Still, it entices the listener to follow along, and it leads to a fantastic, glowing orb of light. Things get darker and rougher after it goes away, however, with stray beats and piano notes connecting to earlier points in the journey. Grey Interiors is a brief but captivating glimpse into an intriguing alternate reality. ~ Paul Simpson