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Yrsel
Yrsel  – Requiem For The Three Kharites

The Last Visions of Agaea
The Tears Of Euphrosyne
Thaleia’s Neurasthenia

Perhaps for reasons of sheer boredom (the shortest track alone clocks in at just over 16 minutes), the duo who make up Yrsel have decided to broaden the pallet of drone a little. Billing itself as a crossover piece between drone and dark electronica, it’s the intellectual mourning of the loss of grace, beauty and creative impulses, interpreted through the medium of dissonant noise. For those of you who are educated in Greek mythology, you might recognise those as the three muses, or the titular Kharites, and if you listen to this trio of tracks, you’ll begin to understand just how deep that mourning is.

When drone is done right, whether through production techniques, choice of tone, or just plain black magic, it’s absolutely riveting. And Ysrel do have that spark of variety about them in comparison to the leaden earth-cracking footfalls of SunnO))); odd voices chant in the ether, while a tasty electronic sustain keeps the atmosphere coiling around your ankles like a sinister fog. When the guitar does come in, it’s for texture, with carefully graded sounds emerging from the immense overdriven downtuned strings. Together with the sparse piano throughout the final track, these little flourishes give a touch of variety to a genre that could all too easily to stagnate.

Although this is a bleak work, it’s clear a lot of love has gone into it; a hollow reminder of the pleasures the muses once embodied, like the whispers of past civilisation that come from the stones of Acropolis.

Reviewed by Steve Jones
‘Requiem For The Three Kharites’ is out now on Aurora Borealis
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