Gafael
Syren
enmossed
Syren rolls in like a thunderstorm, the turbulent distortion of opening track “Submerge 1” howling like a hurricane before Gafael douses the landscape with his dreamily hazy synth textures. Water plays a prominent role throughout the album, as the Welsh artist has tapped into his extensive archive of field recordings, populating the record with the sounds of lapping waves, babbling brooks, rushing rivers and the occasional tempestuous downpour. Yet Syren never feels like something out of National Geographic. It’s too intensely detailed, too emotive and, thanks to Gafael’s clear love of crackling static, far too noisy for that.
More importantly, it employs the same sort of cosmic float that defines some of the best dub techno records, but does so while making no allusions to techno whatsoever. For all of his references to Mother Nature, Gafael has built something that ultimately feels closer to a high-end flotation tank, suspending listeners in a place where they can blissfully observe the beauty and fury of the outside world without being subject to the chaos themselves. That doesn’t make the contents of Syren any less potent—it’s a dazzling record, even in its darkest moments—but it does make for a more fantastical listening experience.