Subheim
No Land Called Home

LA RECENSIONE

"No Land Called Home" is the second album released in 2010 by an interesting duo of Greek origin, called Subheim.

Kostas K. is the main mind behind this project and he is a visual artist, a graphic designer, and an excellent electroacoustic musician. Accompanying Kostas is the singer Katja, endowed with a powerful and evocative voice like few others.

The album in question is an intriguing blend of ambient, electronic, trip-hop (only for some stylistic hints), chamber music, and ethnic music (in its more oriental derivations). It is not an immediate album, it requires several listens to be fully understood in its various nuances. Initially, the listener might be a bit baffled by the multitude of sounds and the variety that exists between one track and another, so much so that it might seem like there is no common thread connecting the various tracks. And yet there is a common thread, indeed. With this work, Subheim wants to express the feeling of living in an open world, without borders, where the individual does not feel tied to any homeland or tradition. An ambivalent feeling, beautiful and at the same time desolate: in this world, one feels disoriented, compelled to wander in solitude along empty and desolate roads, from all over the world, driven by the fact of not feeling at home anywhere.

The album is divided between entirely instrumental pieces and others sung, and it ranges from Nordic-flavored atmospheres (evident in the symphonic openings of tracks like "Dusk", "Streets", "December", "The Cold Hearted Sea") to melodies and rhythms with a more Eastern, "Persian" flavor ("Conspiracies", "Dunes"). Special mention should be made of two tracks, namely "The Veil" and "The Ravage Below". The first recalls the style of Antimatter from the album "Planetary Confinement": a male voice very similar to Mick Moss's, accompanied by electric piano, strings, and melancholic and cold arpeggios of acoustic guitar. In the second, Katja's ethereal vocals strongly evoke that mystical aura of Dead Can Dance.

Not a masterpiece, but a great album. Subheim demonstrates great talent and a great flexibility in exploring different types of the aforementioned sounds, backed by an excellent production: I do not want to exaggerate, but I have rarely noticed in other albums a sound quality of this level.