Band:	Jute Gyte
Album:	Birefringence
Style:	Ambient, Noise, Experimental black metal
Release date:	July 01, 2019
Guest review by:	Alina Zia

01. Angelus Novus
02. Dissected Grace
03. Prosopons
04. The Unformed Volcanic Earth
05. The Foam That Flows From The Mouths Of Wild Boars
06. New Plastic

Jute Gyte's latest exuberant black metal magnum opus, Birefringence, is an apposite successor to Oviri, as it has more immediate accessibility to the listener while retaining its avant-garde ethos. Oviri is a portmanteau album of contrapuntal guitar compositions, Ligeti-esque polyphonic textures, outré harmonies, shambolic discordances, and black noise; the pandemoniac variation in microtonal riffing gains piquancy in "Yarinareth, Yarinareth, Yarinareth" wherein the dynamic juxtaposition of two guitar riffs with diametrically antithetical cadencies played ritardando and precipitando contemporaneously creates an insuperable quisquous tension profoundly evocative of perturbational thoughts. If you are au fait with his works and were disoriented by Oviri, you can expect the same discombobulation from Birefringence, only not completely circumscribed by random controlled processes; contradistinctly, certain sections of Birefringence dispense with serialized pitches/isorhythms and aleatoric sequences.

The opening track, "Angelus Novus", is a farraginous gallimaufry of microtonal riffing and black noise interposed between sections of dilatory languor. The 4:35 mark heralds the commencement of a soft, eldritch tintinnabulation overlaid by an eerie, fluty melody that dissipates at the 5:26 mark. Reflecting a chimeric ambiguity charged with a phantasmagoria of eerie serenity and feyness of uncanny prescience, "Dissected Grace" undertakes a dioristic approach with the agrémens of sonorous, arpeggiating chords in the vicissitudinary vein of blackgaze's ethereal, idyllic calm; the clangor of ersatz hi-hats, programmed blast beats, and Kalmbach's incandescent gutturals counterpoise the coruscations of blackgaze, sundering the halcyon tranquility superinducing the indulgence of dolce far niente. Serialized pitches extirpate tonality, levigating the insouciant atmosphere. "The Unformed Volcanic Earth" begins with a peculiar, languid euphony underlaid by glitchy sound effects, until it is overwhelmed by the assailing vorticity of outré, discordant guitars.

An aural salmagundi of pointillistic sounds obfuscating the uniform, concolorous flow with a niveous haze of discrete vibrational patterns, "The Foam That Flows From The Mouth Of Wild Boars" begins with an oracular, cinematic drone and coruscating sheets of grainy, gritty ambiance of static glitch effects akin to small perturbations in electronic transmission and subtle crepitations of arboraceous detritus incandescent with the calidity of lambent flames. The song is caparisoned with the melodic accoutrements of nonchalant guitar plucks percolating through a spumescent sea of electronic sounds. The medley of styles obviates stringent linearity, making this track a ne plus ultra of sheer scintillating musicality. Kalmbach's ability to euphoniously catenate machinic sounds in numinous soundscapes with seamless concinnity is his métier; in contrast to Oviri, this time he integrates those machinic sounds in a way that appeals to the listener's aural predilections by concocting an eclectic menagerie of sounds, a multifaceted confluence of industrial, musique concrète, drone, electronic, and dark ambient elements.

Kalmbach transmogrifies his vocals into a low-key, disembodied, distorted voice through a voice encoder from 0:45 to 1:55, resurfacing at 3:37 to 4:50; the horrisonant timbre is hauntingly evocative of a discarnate spirit languishing in the throes of its iniquity. An advenient gravelly effect accentuates the minacity of the vocals three minutes into "Prosopons", an eerie modulation previously experimented with on Oviri ("Fauna Of Mirrors" and "The Norms That Author The Self Substitutable") and recapitulated in "The Foam That Flows From The Mouth Of Wild Boars". There is a tempo shift in the fermata before a distinct beep is audible midway, preceded by three regularly spaced beeps interposed between grinding and gear-spinning before a rhythmic concatenation of ticking and dark, piston-slapping beats. The harmonious cadency of incrementally augmenting beats, having the pneumatic sound of piston slaps, resurfaces again, morphing into a low, fast ticking at the 6:30 mark akin to the sound of a ticker tape timer until the songs closure.

"New Plastic" opens with the pandemoniac cacophony of an industrial forklift's hydraulics interspersed with other mechanical elements; a resounding, tortured metal grating adonises the tenuous diaphaneity of orphic, windy soundscapes. The presaging ominousness of high-pitched whines on "New Plastic," rising in an ensorcelling crescendo, imbricate over a low, pulsating drone. These whines and ambient effects are created by the succor of guitar techniques. The ambient sounds seem to have been generated by an E-bow and metal slide glissandoing across the strings of an electric lap steel guitar with electroacoustical feedback systems, a piezo pickup, and a built-in reverb tank with a grommet to create a reverberating effect, or an E-bow, similarly used, connected to synthesizer presets, looper, and reverb. A cello bow likewise generates the high-pitched whines and metallic grating.

Birefringence is not bereft of supererogatory longueurs, as in the last section of "Dissected Grace" and "The Unformed Volcanic Earth". The exiguity of programmed drums, which have a rather synthetic sound, also impinges on the music. Notwithstanding picayune flaws, however, I feel that Birefringence is more accessible than Oviri, making it a worthwhile listen.