Perdition Hill Radio

Album Review

William Fowler Collins belongs to that select group of people working on merging drone music and doom music. Of course, drone music often conveys a certain level of doom, but Collins, along with KTL and labelmate Svarte Greiner, plows the fields sown by the likes of essentially rock bands like Earth (circa Hex) and Sunn 0))), and applies the harvested elements to a guitar-and-computer approach. The result is neither electronic drone ambient nor doom, but a frightful form of the first or an especially laid-back and drifty take on the second. Perdition Hill Radio contains six tracks of looped, reverberating textures, heavy in the low register, rumbling, occasionally building up to a growl, but always kept on a leash — menacing, not threatening. This leaves the listener free to wallow in the waves of filthy noise, study them up close or get lost inside them, without fear of reprisal. As can be the case with KTL, the music tends toward homogeneity, sacrificing diversity to the altar of thematic unity. Collins is probably the darkest electro-acoustic music composer you are likely to encounter, so do dip a toe in his troubled waters. Even fans of experimental ambient artists like Biosphere or Oren Ambarchi will appreciate a track like "The Ghosts of Eden Trail." ~ François Couture, Rovi