Mesarthim
Spire

I press play. I close my eyes.

I'm on a spaceship. I open my eyes again, and through the porthole, I can see, distant, luminous, beautiful Earth. The landing phase begins. I exit my spacecraft and find myself faced with an immense Crater. Around me, only dust and the abysmal interplanetary darkness. At my feet, the shadow cast by the few, weak, solar rays. What planet is this?

Mesarthim is its name. It seems inhospitable, but it is beautiful. Very strange. Very... how to say... unique. On the horizon, pinnacles can be glimpsed. What are they? I don't know, but they take my breath away.

This brief intro is the best way I've found to describe this E.P. by the Australian duo Mesarthim, Spire, in the shortest time possible. Just over ten minutes, only two songs (Crater and Spire), which launch us into an interplanetary journey, discovering new worlds, new atmospheres. Atmosphere... precisely this is the fundamental element of the Australian duo, as evidenced by the image they chose as the profile of their Bandcamp page: "cosmic atmospheric black metal" are the words that appear above an extremely simple and linear yet very intriguing drawing. But don't be fooled: in these ten minutes, there is no room for black metal. These ten minutes are dominated by electronic melodies and choirs accompanied, only in the title track, by drums that follow very simple patterns. No screams, no metallic fury (elements that will return in the next ".- -... ... . -. -.-. ."): just pure cosmic melody. Could this be the famous "music of the spheres"?

The true exploration, the true journey we are taken on by the magnificent notes of this very short work, is not the interplanetary one: rather, it is a much deeper journey, a journey in which, willingly or not, we are projected outside our bodies to look within ourselves and know ourselves better. An alienating journey in which we become something else, distancing ourselves from the physical body to become an ethereal entity wandering within our consciousness, like a spaceship among stars and planets. Spire is an E.P. whose purpose, as I experienced it, is to provide the listener moments of introspective reflection in which to isolate oneself from the world, like an astronaut in their capsule, to converse with oneself.

For all lovers of atmospheric music, this is an E.P. to own at all costs (it can, however, be obtained for free on the band's Bandcamp page), one of the most beautiful and engaging works of 2016 in my opinion.

Line up:

• .- Everything
• .- Other

Tracklist:

• Crater - 3:38
• Spire - 7:10