Troy Pierce has been creating off-kilter techno since the mid ‘00s, always opting for a non-conformist, adventurous output (just listen to his 2007 full-length, Gone Astray). Now, he is joined by another forward-thinking creative mind in Natalie Escobar, who has also stepped into the off-kilter experimental music realm with her project Poison Arrow. Their collaboration, Pierce With Arrow, finds them at their most dark and somber, as they draw inspiration from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and in particular the tragic tale of Echo and Narcissus.
With such a concept in mind, Pierce With Arrow set out to construct an impressive ambiance. An all-encompassing atmosphere that is placed as a veil on top of the music. Subtle in its application, it rises through the slow tribal element in “Echo,” a ritual procession that slowly unfolds out of the darkness. With a hint of an urban quality, stemming from the synthetic instrumentation, the ambiance quickly takes on a noir-esque facade building into an amorphous and ethereal presence that colors the soundscapes in grey. The soft sounding percussion of moments like “In The Depths of His Eyes” also give rise to this quality, pushing this endeavour towards a dark ambient form.
It is here that the avant-gardeisms of Pierce With Echo take further form. Minimal additions, tastefully placed, like the rising tension in “Obsidian Glass” create a feeling of anticipation. Still, the dark character of this work does not allow for a catharsis, a telos to this build-up, and instead it is only the deathly procession that carries on. It takes the form of an industrial backbeat as “A Tight Passage” comes into view, one of the more earthy moments of the album, only to then manifest through a horrific dark ambient menace with “It’s A Love Story After All,” weaponized to inflict mental scarring.
Still, underneath the heavy atmospheres and the minimal techno progressions there is something inherently romantic about this work. A damned story of love and despair, fuelled by the tale of Echo and Narcissus. Techno concepts are subdued in “Dissolving to A Voice,” as Pierce With Arrow take a desolate passage through darkened electronic halls, arriving into a deconstructed darkwave inspired moment in “She Pined Away.” Closer “Narcissus” carries on in this vain of melancholic romanticism, putting the final touches to this work in a moment of mystical awakening, concluding a work of minimal and otherworldly electronic music in a dreamlike scenery. Shatter is a an experience to lose oneself into, a journey into the unknown, and Pierce With Arrow do not allow this illusion to be shattered for a single second.
