SECRET PYRAMID - Movements of Night

"SECRET PYRAMID is the solo project of Vancouver-based musician AMIR ABBEY, whose previous output includes The Silent March cassette (to be reissued on vinyl by Students of Decay in early 2014). Movements of Night finds Abbey further develop and refine the haunting, faraway sound-world that earned the aforementioned release well-due praise. A Descent" opens the record; its title aptly portends the tracks dirge-like drones and throbbing cycles of low-end. Throughout Movements of Night, Abbey deftly navigates the properties of sleep and unconsciousness, charting a course that is equal parts harrowing and funereal, tranquil and sublime. Juxtaposing the everyday with the obscured, the half-there melodies and arcs of hazy guitar histrionics of "Closer" dissolve into "To Forget," a track that posits a more familiar, tangible atmosphere in which radiant drones are tethered to a driving bassline, recalling perhaps a lost 70s Popol Vuh Herzog soundtrack. "Escape" closes the album on a nostalgic note, akin to the feeling of waking from a wondrous dream which one knows one cannot revisit. With Movements of Night, Abbey casts his net into the abyss of the unconscious and returns with a potent paean to the dreamworld. For fans of Sunn O))), Popol Vuh, Stars of the Lid." -Students of Decay.