Free Tala - Underwater Sounds to Lure the Fishes

Discreet/Futura Resistenza affiliate, Juho Toivonen is back working under the Free Tala alias with what is a concept album of sorts designed, as the title states, to "lure the fishes". Toivonen is mining a bit of a tradition here, the fascination with the ocean/the underwater a running theme in experimental music through Drexciya, Porter Ricks, Grouper, Werkbund et al, the vastness, the pressure, the mystery and mythology alluring aesthetic themes. If there's a lightness to Underwater Sounds... presentation (the artwork suggests Toivonen's motives for 'luring' more friendly than predatory), the music itself is quite the opposite, three sonorous, drone-oriented tracks that take a deep-dive into the elemental depths. Fans of the most recent Werkbund will feel a similar pull here, though there's also ties to the heaviosity of Liz Harris' Nivhek project and Hecker's Harmony In Ultraviolet, physical sounds that never let you forget you're a body. Mostly, however, I'm reminded of FUJI||||||||||TA's kind of legendary Tomori LP, recorded in a bat cave at the foot of Mt Fuji, nature, wildlife, and human interaction alive as one monolithic whole. Toivonen may not have gone to such extremes to make his record, but the impulses to plug into nature's wonder are equally prevalent.