Bengalfuel – Edgemere

What’s in a name? Grab a few letters, rearrange, receive a new impulse, collage your meaning, glue words so they represent duality sprite. With Bengalfuel, apt prospects: their ghost and spirit influences merged with a primal austerity; ambience for train rides; running away from empirical tiger; muscularity lodged; primed for battle but no teeth on edge. Lou DiBenedetto and Joe LiTrenta’s china-delicate Ambient, free of secularity taint, perfectly suited to Hibernate’s Jonathan Lees, a regular subversive of art for art’s sake, releasing some off-kilter surprises since the label emerged from the electro-acoustic underground two years back; pre Rural Colours’ “Feldspar” by Lou (Dentist solo) and Joe (DocDeem). Remnants might shatter into a Jehova’s Witness manual on mankind, as no matter how many holy endorsements, quality of the actions bestowed are critical; everything else is just clutter, whereas HB have their hearts on sleeve to great feel.

The occult has seen many perversions in its centuries of land-flattening, theory smuggling, lip sealing, pressure applying, from re-interpreted biblical tales that treacherous people will be torn away from earth, to paranormal experiences with psychotropic drugs from the Amazon. If one’s thing’s clear from the outset of “Edgemere”, it’s that there’s a discernably minimalistic, to the bone, vaccuum going to the cleaners. The pair are supplementing really rich base materials, as if the subjects of life, death and intermediary “making peace with tormented souls” Lees explains, upholds to a compromising, strangely empty vibe, pleasing you with light overspray, as befits Joe’s haunted house that early Bengalfuel was conducted in. “Braindit (Cathedral)” has that majestic room-filling Dead Texan analogue to a tee, nevertheless no hologram. My personal criteria for great drone enacts repeat / synergy / repeat / modify, a three-tier spectrum plus output, that guarantees to a good signing ear what makes the grade longevity-wise. Not always what satisfies the producer as a short-term, prolificity-and-knuckling-down intertwined divide.

Be afraid of committing to anything, likewise, and you’re shortsightedly wearing brown paper bag overhead, blinded of virtue and any benefits. “Exorcised” cuts your shield with filed scissors: paddling ambience layers; leaving you thoughtfully vulnerable for the mind to drift. Intentional? Conjecture open, despite Bengalfuel’s move to a lake area for recording. The simplicity swings your lobes physical to verbal, left and right hemisphere, offering and retraction. Christopher Bissonnette’s “In Between Words” in similar ballpark; shortly looped micro-ambiences, very natural and specifically emotive. The track sits nicely on the CD-R but would feel crass out of context – track one’s warmth outstrips its subtle charms, and it’s abjected of responsibility to resolve. “Mad Daddy Clawbone” ups the intensity with a filtered breakbeat resonating up and under a sparse semi-chord, and this is where the active listening really comes alive. Then just as you’re standing up, “Shadow Demon” sits you still for an episode of droning me, droning you, altering key from “Braindit…” and acting loveable bookend to an uneven, very engaging mini-set. If we’re to take one thing from the name Bengalfuel, then it should on more inspection be fright suspended. Come brush yourself off to DiBenedetto and LiTrenta’s glomerating detox – you’ll forget life’s malice in the process.

- Mick Buckingham for Fluid Radio

Stash It

www.hibernate-recs.co.uk
www.dentissst.com/bengalfuel