Review: Leila Abdul-Rauf ‘Calls From A Seething Edge’
Although perhaps best known for her work in the death metal sphere, Leila Abdul-Rauf has actually been crafting a sonically intriguing catalogue of ambient music for some time now. Calls From A Seething Edge is her fourth solo effort and follows on from 2021s highly acclaimed Phantasiai. Her dark abstract soundscapes feel like a world away from her performances in Vastum and Cardinal Wyrm, showcasing instead a more delicate approach to atmosphere. However, Calls From A Seething Edge takes us down another different track.
Her previous solo work felt like the kind of ambient music in which the artist was accompanying the listener on a journey where they only really had a sketched-out map and a natural sense of direction to guide the way. On this album, the artist has a full colour map, several different compasses and a number of trusted guests to help take the listener on a very deliberate sonic journey. It still retains much of the subtlety and carefulness, but with melodies, instrumentation and vocal performances that feel very purposeful in their composition. Both approaches have their value and can provide the artist as well as the listener with a very different experience.
It makes sense in a way, given how attached to our current zeitgeist Leila’s music appears. 2021 was a time when most of us were being forced to simply go with the flow in life, awaiting decisions to be taken on our behalf from decision makers who themselves had little idea of how to make them. In 2024, the world feels like we are in a reactionary stage, full of war, division and discontent. It is from these times that Calls From A Seething Edge lets out its cries.
Each of the album’s seven tracks manages to have a quite unique combination of sounds and styles. While the opener and closer Summon and The Summoned appear as two parts of the same track, they take different paths. Summon builds gently with drones and choral vocals into crescendos amongst flourishes of woodwind, strings and percussion. The Summoned kicks straight in with a heavy, pounding instrumental before gradually proceeding to a calm finale. They have certain tones, in the vocals and synths, that remind me of the early albums of Grimes, sitting somewhere between esoteric witch house and more typical dark ambient.
What lies between these are five superbly engaging tracks that really display the mantra of quality over quantity (something many ambient artists can often be accused of ignoring). The album feels short enough that you immediately want to play it again, but not so brief that you feel it is lacking in any creative areas. And while the sounds might vary, sometimes quite substantially, below every track there is a familiar droning bass that seems to tie the disparate elements together.
Leila Abdul-Rauf has crafted Calls From A Seething Edge into an utterly absorbing and transformative record…
Mukhalafat is based around a solo string instrumental that appears from the borders where Spanish and Arabic music intersect, combining it with immersive percussion and ethereal brass. Depths Of Us is a vocal led track, behind which staccato synth notes bind with drawn out trumpet lines and swirling woodwind into a spatial psychedelic plain. By the end the vocals are crossing over each other, with a call and answer that never quite gets resolved. The track fades just at the point where you feel it could explode, and whilst that might leave a slight discontent, it may also be exactly the point.
Failure To Fire starts with a battering ram of heavy percussion against folk string instruments. With shimmering electronics and vocals in the mix too, it all combines to evoke the windy, mountainous terrains from across the turtle island. It reminds me of the more atmospheric sides of bands like Wolves In The Throne Room or Woods Of Ypres.
The Light That Left You is a real change of tone, and for me it is also the album’s standout moment. A dark jazz inspired piece, it balances a piano that feels like it’s right in the room with brass that sounds like it’s being transported from a distant world. When the lead vocals come in, they evoke a trip hop atmosphere of nighttime cityscapes and vast future metropolises. I never wanted it to end.
Crimes Of The Soul follows by taking us into an industrial wasteland through slow grinding bass synths, heavy thumping beats and depressive vocals. It builds with Arabic jazz style instrumental lines and glassy synths that break through the mud to show mere glimpses of light. It’s relentless, pulsating, and overwhelming in the absolute best way possible.
There is really nothing about this album I did not like. It is engrossing, intriguing and full of details that make you want to revisit it over and over again. Moreover, it displays the fabulous skill of this multi-talented artist who has embraced genre clashes, musical crossovers and pushed the boundaries of her own ambient style. In doing so Leila Abdul-Rauf has crafted Calls From A Seething Edge into an utterly absorbing and transformative record.
Label: Cyclic Law | Syrup Moose Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Will J
